Colloidal fuels are dispersions of solid fuels in water. Its composition varies from 60% to 70% of solid fuel and 30% to 40% of water, with 0.4% of additives.

Since the 70’s, the world have tried to manufacture liquid fuels out of coal without success. The resulting “slurries” would sediment and were very difficult to handle. The new Colloidal fuel developed by Blue Advanced Colloidal Fuels Corp.   (Blue) is composed of solids suspended in water in colloidal form, with particle sizes smaller than one micron. These solids do not sediment. These news fuels macro view cannot be differentiated from that of heavy fuel oil, only that they are less viscous.

Grinding petcoke, coal or asphaltite to colloidal size is prohibitively expensive. Further, these materials cannot be grounded to colloidal size without particles getting air borne. However, colloidal fuels are manufactured by means of a proprietary wet-comminution technology that works on purely fluid mechanics grounds. The fuels can be produced cheaply and in large quantities. The process footprint is small and has a small residence time. The colloidal particulate allows the combustion behavior of the fuel to resemble that of a gas. There is virtually no loss of ignition in combustion which produces a translucent flame. Overall, the fuel behavior is no different from that of fuel oil with very little boiler de-rating due to water evaporation.

The foregoing stems from the huge surface-per-volume ratio associated with the colloidal materials. This feature, so far with no prior art, also opens new ways for clean coal technology applications.

The technology has been assessed by a third party (Babcock & Wilcox) with great success, showing the following results:

•Colloidal fuels can be combusted in boilers using existing burner/atomizer design.

•Full load operations were successfully performed at various conditions.

•Once uniformly mixed, colloidal fuels are easy to handle. No heating required.

•Compared to HFO, colloidal fuels combustion has similar flame stability, furnace heat transfer characteristics and atomization air usage.

•Colloidal fuels have high combustion efficiency (99%).

Colloidal Fuels

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