Application
Valve and Airlock Selection for Power and Energy Plants
Answer in brief
Power plants ask one valve to handle two difficult materials: ash that floods and fuel that can catch fire.
Aerated fly ash passes a rotary valve far faster than its nominal volume, while biomass fibre wraps around anything that turns.
- Design the discharge for the aerated state, not the settled one.
- Keep fuel handling free of places where material can sit and heat.
- Classify the area and select the valve accordingly.
Reviewed October 21, 2026 · Updated October 21, 2026
The problem
Fly ash arrives aerated from pneumatic transfer and floods through clearances, while milled coal and biomass bring ignition risk into the same equipment.
Fibrous biomass behaves differently again, bridging and wrapping rather than flowing.
Desired outcome
A valve that controls an aerated powder without flooding, survives the abrasion of ash, and does not become an ignition source or a place where fuel can accumulate.
Process approach
For ash, a rotary valve with a deaeration volume above it and adequate pocket depth restores control; without that volume no valve meters a fluidised powder.
For milled fuel, the valve is part of a protected system: ignition source control, temperature monitoring and isolation are specified together with it.
For fibrous biomass, large clearances and anti-wrap features matter more than tight sealing.
- Deaeration volume and level control above the valve.
- Wear protection at tips and in the bore for ash duty.
- Equipment selected for the classified zone where fuel dust is present.
Selection factors
- Aeration state of the material at the valve inlet.
- Abrasiveness of the ash and the expected clearance life.
- Self-heating behavior of the fuel and the monitoring in place.
- Area classification and the resulting equipment requirements.
- Whether isolation duty is required by the protection concept.
Common failure modes
- Aerated ash flooding through the valve and overfilling the receiver
- Clearance opened by ash abrasion, losing conveying capacity
- Fuel accumulating in a dead pocket and self-heating
- Fibrous biomass wrapping the rotor shaft
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