Patent Grant
12134966
The present application is a U.S. National Phase of International Application Number PCT/CN2020/131625 filed Nov. 26, 2020 and claims priority to Chinese Application Number 202010155367.6 filed Mar. 9, 2020.
The present invention relates to the field of underground coal gasification technologies and in particular to an underground gasifier pre-control structure, a gasifier and a gasification method.
Chinese energy system is facing double challenges, that is, the energy system needs to adapt to the requirements of social low-carbon green development while satisfying the increasing requirements for Chinese energy consumption. China has the resource distribution characteristics of more coals and less gas, and needs to carry out the green extraction concept of clean efficient utilization of coals. Therefore, the underground coal gasification technology becomes particularly important in China with large coal reserve and large gas consumption. Additionally, the underground coal gasification technology is also one of multiple approaches to relieve the shortage of the gas sources of China.
Compared with traditional physical coal extraction, the underground coal gasification is a new process for coal extraction. The underground coal gasification features low cost, high efficiency, high resource extraction rate, stable operation and small environmental impact, and may be used to extract coal resources that cannot be extracted by using traditional method. But, the underground coal gasification technology is still not put into industrial applications after more than 80 years of site tests and one of the bottleneck technologies that it faces is that the structure of the gasifier is difficult to control. At present, the carrier of the underground coal gasifier is a geological body and the morphology and the structure of the coals during gasification and combustion in the formation cannot be controlled, resulting in uncontrolled development and spread of the structure of the gasifier. When the internal space of the gasifier is too large, a coal mass may be heated and broken, a surrounding rock stress increases and overlying strata collapses. In this case, normal operation of the underground coal gasifier will be directly affected. For example, the patent CN107701166A discloses an underground coal gasifier with anti-high-temperature well cementing technology using double-layer standard petroleum casing, which has not solved the problem of the pre-control of a cavity structure of the gasifier.
In order to solve the technical defects of inability to control the morphology and the structure of the coal gasifier in the prior art, the present invention provides an underground gasifier pre-control structure, a gasifier and a gasification method, where coal masses at both sides of the gasifier are wetted by changing the structure of the coal masses so as to control expansion and spread of the gasifier toward both sides. Furthermore, due to supporting of the wet coal masses at both ends, the stability inside the cavity of the gasifier is improved, and complete structure of the surrounding rocks are maintained, such that the gasifier has good airtightness and bearing capacity during operation, thus achieving stable gasification of the underground coal seams.
One of tasks of the present invention is to provide an underground gasifier pre-control structure in the following technical solution.
There is provided an underground gasifier pre-control structure, including a flame retardant injection system, wherein the flame retardant injection system includes a flame retardant injection shaft pipe channel drilled from ground to a coal seam and a flame retardant injection channel located in the coal seam. The flame retardant injection channel includes a first flame retardant injection channel and a second flame retardant injection channel located at both sides of each gasifier and a third flame retardant injection channel located in a horizontal direction of an adjacent gasifier. The first flame retardant injection channel includes a horizontal section arranged along a strike of the coal seam and a bypass section offset toward the gasifier. The second flame retardant injection channel has the same structure as the first flame retardant injection channel, and the horizontal section of the first flame retardant injection channel and a horizontal section of a second horizontal channel are arranged symmetric about the gasifier.
Several flame retardant injection shaft pipe channels, the bottoms of which are in communication with the first flame retardant injection channel and the second flame retardant injection channel, are disposed.
By injecting a flame retardant solution into the corresponding first flame retardant injection channel, second flame retardant injection channel and third flame retardant injection channel through the flame retardant injection shaft pipe channel, a wet coal wall is formed in the coal seam to achieve pre-control on the gasifier.
The above technical solution directly brings the following beneficial technical effects.
With the construction of the flame retardant injection system, the underground gasification that has not been solved before is pre-controlled and a width for gasification will be reduced to control the cavity of the gasifier to be within the stable scope of the surrounding rocks, helping a mine owner to arrange gasification production flexibly based on specific requirements. Further, the flame retardant injection system itself is a low-cost auxiliary approach. During a process from gas production of the gasifier to shutdown of the gasifier, the costs of the flame retardant injection are very low except for the costs of the drilling, helping the mine owner to control the production costs.
Another task of the present invention is to provide a gasifier.
There is provided an underground gasifier, including an inlet gas shaft pipe channel in a direction from ground to a coal seam, a directional inbuilt horizontal pipe channel arranged horizontally in the coal seam, a return gas shaft pipe channel for gas discharge, and an ignition area, wherein both ends of the directional inbuilt horizontal pipe channel are in communication with the inlet gas shaft pipe channel and the return gas shaft pipe channel. The gasifier further includes the underground gasifier pre-control structure as mentioned above.
The inlet gas shaft pipe channel, the directional inbuilt horizontal pipe channel and the return gas shaft pipe channel form one U-shaped structure; several adjacent gasifiers have a same structure and the several adjacent gasifiers form one gasifier unit and several gasification areas.
The above technical solution directly brings the following beneficial effects.
Due to combination of the flame retardant injection system and the gasifier, artificial control factors are involved in the original unit of gasification process such that the size of the gasifier and the length of the gasification channel can be disposed or flexibly adjusted based on production requirements. Further, the flame retardant injection system can flexibly regulate the production based on a gasification manner in combination with specific geological conditions and work conditions. Moreover, according to different production requirements of the mine owner in different periods, flame retardant injection control is performed for a single gasifier to carry out simultaneous gasification production of multiple production units. Therefore, the flexible combination of the flame retardant injection system and the gasifier can bring obvious conveniences and economic benefits to a production operator.
Further preferably, the above flame retardant injection shaft pipe channel is drilled to a distance from above the coal seam where the gasifier is located, and a shaft support casing is disposed under the flame retardant injection shaft pipe channel.
Further preferably, lengths of the horizontal sections of the first flame retardant injection channel and the second flame retardant injection channel are identical to a length of the directional inbuilt horizontal pipe.
Another task of the present invention is to provide a gasification method of the above underground gasifier, including the following steps sequentially:
Further preferably, in step b, the specific method of drilling the flame retardant injection shaft pipe channel includes: drilling toward the coal seam by using the drill, and when a horizontal distance from the left side of the directional inbuilt horizontal pipe channel is 22 meters and a distance from the bottom of the return gas shaft pipe channel is 10 meters, stopping drilling.
Further preferably, the directional inbuilt horizontal pipe channel is arranged at a ⅓ coal thickness from a floor of the coal seam and paralleled to the coal seam.
Further preferably, in step b, the circular arc section is ¼ length of a circle with a radius less than 22 meters and drilling of 25 meters is performed along a tangential direction of the circular arc section.
Further preferably, magnesium chloride is selected as the flame retardant, and added to the flame retardant injection system to form a flame retardant injection solution with a concentration of 10% to 20%, which is prepared for instant use.
Further preferably, in step b, when the third flame retardant injection pipe channel is constructed, a horizontal directional borehole of the coal seam is enabled to have the same dip angle as the coal seam and is 1.0 to 1.5 meters from a roof of the coal seam where the gasifier is located.
Compared with the prior art, the present invention brings the following beneficial technical effects.
(1) A flame retardant injection system is designed in the pre-control structure of the gasifier of the present invention, and flame spread during gasification of the gasifier is controlled by designing the flame retardant injection system and relevant pipes. Meanwhile, according to design and arrangement of the flame retardant injection pipes in the coal seam, during a gasification process of the coal seam, the gasifier performs gasification only in the wet coal wall formed by the first flame retardant injection pipe, the second flame retardant injection pipe and the third flame retardant injection pipe. With the protection of the flame retardant injection system, design can be carried out by centering around the single gasifier and the use rate of the flame retardant injection pipes of the single gasifier can be increased to maximum by using efficient pipe arrangement and economic flame retardant injection devices. Furthermore, a plurality of gasification units may be operated at the same time, and pipes and flame retardant injection parameters may be flexibly adjusted for the flame retardant injection pipes based on specific production situations to ensure efficient operation of the gasification production.
(2) Due to the support of the wet coal wall, the effect of pre-controlling the structure of the gasifier is achieved. The gasifier is pre-controlled to be the length-to-width ratio of 5:1, and a width of the gasification channel pre-controlled by the gasifier is less than an extreme caving interval of the overlying strata, which will not damage the integrity of the overlying strata nor result in large-area caving of the overlying strata. Thus, the development height of the fissure zone of the overlying strata is further effectively controlled and the bearing capacity and the airtightness of the gasifier are ensured.
(3) The stable gasifier structure further lays foundation for ensuring simultaneous gasification production of a plurality of units of gasifiers, thus solving the problem of insufficient gas production of a single gasifier and the operation instability of the gasifier structure in a continuous gasification process.
(4) With flexible pre-control of the gasifier structure, a plurality of gasification units are enabled to run and reach a design gasification capacity at the same time or a plurality of gasification units may be started at the same time, thus solving the problems of long startup time and long up-to-design-capacity period.
(5) By designing the flame retardant injection system, a gasification size of the gasifier may be pre-controlled.
The present invention will be further described below in details in combination with the accompanying drawings.
Numerals of the drawings are described below: 1. inlet gas shaft pipe channel, 2. directional inbuilt horizontal pipe channel, 3. return gas shaft pipe channel, 4. flame retardant injection shaft pipe channel, 5. first flame retardant injection channel, 6. third flame retardant injection channel, 7. coal pillar wetted by flame retardant injection, 8. gasifier gasification area, and 9. coal seam.
The present invention provides an underground gasifier pre-control structure, a gasifier and a gasification method. In order to make the advantages and technical solutions of the present invention clearer, the present invention will be further described in details in combination with specific embodiments.
The first flame retardant injection channel 5 mentioned in the present invention is a directional flame retardant injection channel of a horizontal long section of a coal seam, and the third flame retardant injection channel 6 is a directional flame retardant injection channel of a horizontal short section of the coal seam.
The underground gasifier pre-control structure of the present invention is used to solve the problem of inability to control a gasifier. The stable gasifier structure lays foundation for ensuring simultaneous gasification production of a plurality of units of gasifiers, thus solving the problem of insufficient gas production of a single gasifier and the operation instability of the gasifier structure in a continuous gasification process.
Specifically, in the prior art, the gasifier is difficult to control in structure and morphology during a gasification process. The major technical difficulties are as follows: when the underground gasifier performs gasification after being ignited, the downhole is basically in uncontrolled state and the gasification continuously expands outwardly after ignition.
In order to solve the above technical problems, the present invention creatively designs a flame retardant injection system. With the detailed designing of the structure of the flame retardant injection system, a coal mine flame retardant (selecting magnesium chloride) of a given concentration may be injected into a coal seam by using the flame retardant injection system and the coal mine flame retardant will stay in the coal seam to protect the wet coal wall against failure of structure control due to water high temperature evaporation.
As shown in
The above pre-control structure is applied to an underground gasifier to achieve structure control. The main principle is that the implementation is carried out by combining the above flame retardant injection system with the coal wetting of the flame retardant injection. Firstly, detailed descriptions are made to the gasifier including the above pre-control structure.
Provided is an underground gasifier including an inlet gas shaft pipe channel in a direction from ground to a coal seam, a directional inbuilt horizontal pipe channel arranged horizontally in the coal seam, a return gas shaft pipe channel for gas discharge, and an ignition area, wherein both ends of the directional inbuilt horizontal pipe channel are in communication with the inlet gas shaft pipe channel and the return gas shaft pipe channel.
The inlet gas shaft pipe channel, the directional inbuilt horizontal pipe channel and the return gas shaft pipe channel form one U-shaped structure; several adjacent gasifiers have a same structure and the several adjacent gasifiers form one gasifier unit and several gasification areas.
The first flame retardant injection channel, the second flame retardant injection channel, the third flame retardant injection channel and the flame retardant injection shaft pipe channel in the above flame retardant injection system are respectively arranged at corresponding positions of the gasifier with details referred to the following embodiment.
A single underground gasifier is constructed.
As shown in
Based on the above method, other gasifiers are constructed, and one gasifier unit is formed by using several gasifiers.
As a major innovative point of the present invention, the flame retardant injection system is constructed in the following process.
Firstly, the flame retardant injection shaft pipe channel 4 is drilled by using a drill same as that for drilling the inlet gas shaft pipe channel.
The drill lowering position of the flame retardant injection shaft pipe channel 4 is as shown in
Further, the coal seam horizontal directional drill is lowered to drill the horizontal section of the first flame retardant injection channel and the drill is same as that for drilling the directional inbuilt horizontal pipe channel.
The specific drilling method is described below.
It is required that the directional borehole of the horizontal long section of the coal seam is arranged to serve the flame retardant injection as possible. Therefore, the horizontal directional borehole of the coal seam should have the same dip angle as the coal seam if possible, and is 1.0 to 1.5 meters from the roof of the coal seam where the gasifier is located. In order to improve the wetting effect, the borehole angle is adjusted to +4° with an azimuth angle of 90° by using an ignition gasification working face as reference. The length of the horizontal directional borehole of the flame retardant injection pipe may be determined based on the number of gasification channels and the strike length of the coal seam. When the length of horizontal straight section of the flame retardant injection pipe is identical to the strike length of the gasifier, the drilling of the horizontal straight section is completed and directional adjustment is to be made to the directional drill. When the drilling is performed to 122 meters from the inlet gas shaft pipe channel, the drilling direction is adjusted to offset to the inner side of the gasifier, as shown in
After the first flame retardant injection channel is constructed, the construction of the second flame retardant injection channel is continued based on the same method as the first flame retardant injection channel. As shown in
Finally, the third flame retardant injection pipe channel 6 is constructed, that is, the directional flame retardant injection channel of the horizontal short section of the coal seam is constructed. As shown in
After the above flame retardant injection system is constructed, it is further required to perform coal wetting of flame retardant injection so as to control the structure and morphology of the gasifier during a gasification process.
The step of the coal wetting of flame retardant injection specifically includes the followings: the flame retardant injection pipe which is a flexible high pressure inlet water rubber pipe woven by steel wire is lowered; the flame retardant injection pipe is disposed as one pipe of sufficient length, saving connection steps; meanwhile, due to less joints, frictional force in the casing is reduced, and the flame retardant injection pipe is directly introduced into the support casing of the flame retardant injection channel.
The coal mine flame retardant (selecting magnesium chloride) of a given concentration is added to the injected water to prepare a flame retardant injection solution of a concentration of 10% to 20%. After the solution is injected into the coal seam, the coal mine flame retardant will stay in the coal seam to protect the wetted coal wall against failure of structure control due to water high temperature evaporation.
The larger the flame retardant injection pressure is, the larger the wetting radius is. In actual applications, limited by factors such as pressure supply devices, pipes and production costs, the flame retardant injection pressure is not allowed to increase unlimitedly. The flame retardant injection time is also to be controlled. Too long flame retardant injection time may result in wastes of the aqueous solvent, especially result in wastes of coal resources due to excessively large coal pillars 7 wetted by the flame retardant injection in the coal seam, but a short time cannot achieve a wetting effect.
Therefore, the flame retardant injection time and the flame retardant injection pressure may be determined based on a coal thickness and a coal quality of the coal seam where the gasifier is located. For a thin or medium thick coal seam, a constant pressure flame retardant injection of 5 MPa is selected. In order to ensure the injection amount of the flame retardant of the coal seam 9, each hole is injected with the flame retardant for no less than 12 hours but no greater than 24 hours. For a thick or ultra-thick hard coal seam, an intermittent high and low pressure alternating flame retardant injection mode may be selected to perform intermittent high and low pressure alternating flame retardant injection with a low water pressure of 3 MPa and a high water pressure of 9 MPa. Such flame retardant injection mode forms a phenomenon like “impact”, such that a coal mass expands and shrinks in volume continuously, leading to the strength fatigue of the coal mass. In this way, the degree of fracture of the coal mass is increased and connectivity of the fissures of the coal mass is increased, thus directly forming many new small fissures in the coal seam and greatly improving the efficiency of the flame retardant injection.
After the flame retardant injection is completed, borehole packing is the key to ensure good effect of the flame retardant injection of the coal seam. Since the borehole packer matches the borehole and can bear a given pressure, an expanding cement may be used to perform physical borehole packing with a packing depth of more than 1.5 m. As shown in
After the flame retardant injection pipes are arranged, and borehole packing and coal wetting are completed by flame retardant injection, ignition can be performed for gasification so as to perform gasification production in the gasification area of the gasifier 8. A gasification unit body can be determined based on requirements. It is required that the gasifiers on both wings perform flame retardant injection and coal wetting at the same time and carry out ignition for gasification. In this way, it is convenient to perform gas collection management of the gasifier and carry out centralized management for the flame retardant injection pipes. Valve control is performed between the flame retardant injection pipes which are connected with a time meter, a flow meter, a pressure gauge, and a relief valve, so as to enable the operation of the flame retardant injection to be more accurate, more efficient and safer.
It is noted that, without contrary descriptions herein, the terms such as “upper”, “lower”, “left”, and “right” indicate the directions shown in the drawings of the present invention.
Those parts not mentioned in the present invention may be referred to the prior art for implementation.
It is noted that, any equivalents or obvious variations made by those skilled in the part under the teaching of the present invention shall all fall within the scope of protection of the present invention.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 202010155367.6 | Mar 2020 | CN | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/CN2020/131625 | 11/26/2020 | WO |
| Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| WO2021/179684 | 9/16/2021 | WO | A |
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5287926 | Grupping | Feb 1994 | A |
| 20100012331 | Larter | Jan 2010 | A1 |
| 20150107833 | Boone | Apr 2015 | A1 |
| 20160194945 | Chen | Jul 2016 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 103821484 | May 2014 | CN |
| 205936569 | Feb 2017 | CN |
| 107701166 | Feb 2018 | CN |
| 207568580 | Jul 2018 | CN |
| 111173491 | May 2020 | CN |
| Entry |
|---|
| International Search Report issued in International Application No. PCT/CN2020/131625; mailed Jan. 28, 2021; 8 pgs. |
| Written Opinion issued in International Application No. PCT/CN2020/131625; mailed Jan. 28, 2021; 9 pgs. |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20230008988 A1 | Jan 2023 | US |
