SCR Catalyst Management Strategies - Modeling and Experience

For coal-fired boilers equipped with SCR, catalyst contributes to a major operating expense. Strategies for minimizing catalyst cost while preserving system performance generally referred to as catalyst management – are receiving greater attention. Approaches for managing catalyst can vary widely. Therefore, analysis of catalyst management strategies requires accurate predictive tools for assessing SCR system performance that have the flexibility to address a wide range of scenarios. These predictive tools may also be used to investigate performance issues that facility operators may encounter. However, until recently, operators have not had access to these tools, except through catalyst suppliers or consultants. In this paper, various catalyst management strategies will be examined. Using software currently used by several power plant operators and SCR technology suppliers, we will illustrate some of the important considerations of a catalyst management strategy and provide an example of how catalyst management strategies can be evaluated with such a software tool.