---
title: "PC boiler (pulverised coal)"
description: "A pulverised-coal (PC) boiler grinds coal to a fine powder in pulverising mills and injects it through burners into a furnace, where it burns in suspension at 1,400–1,700 °C. PC boilers are the dominant utility-scale boiler design worldwide and remain the workhorse of legacy coal-fired generation in Asia, India, Africa, Eastern Europe and parts of the Americas."
canonical_url: "https://sylio.co/glossary/pc-boiler"
last_updated: "2026-06-28T02:29:26.147Z"
---

A **pulverised-coal (PC) boiler** grinds coal to a fine powder in pulverising mills and injects it through burners into a furnace, where it burns in suspension at 1,400–1,700 °C. PC boilers are the dominant utility-scale boiler design worldwide and remain the workhorse of legacy coal-fired generation in Asia, India, Africa, Eastern Europe and parts of the Americas.

## Layout

A typical PC boiler has tangential, wall-fired or down-fired burner arrangements with [waterwalls](/glossary/waterwall) absorbing radiant heat from the furnace; gas then passes over [superheaters](/glossary/superheater), [reheaters](/glossary/reheater), [economisers](/glossary/economiser) and finally [air heaters](/glossary/air-heater) before reaching the [ESP](/glossary/electrostatic-precipitator) or [baghouse](/glossary/baghouse).

## Fouling pattern

- **Slag** on waterwalls and finishing superheaters
- **Bonded ash** on convective superheater and reheater tube banks
- **Bridging deposits** in the economiser hopper
- **Ammonium-bisulphate fouling** on the air-heater cold end (if SCR is installed upstream)
- **Hopper bridging** on the ESP and baghouse

[Sonic horns](/glossary/sonic-horn) installed across the convective pass attack the second through fourth of these continuously, complementing steam [sootblowers](/glossary/steam-sootblower) on the slag-bonded superheater.

## Related terms

- [Boiler](/glossary/boiler)
- [CFB boiler](/glossary/cfb-boiler)
- [Waterwall](/glossary/waterwall)
- [Superheater](/glossary/superheater)
- [Electrostatic precipitator](/glossary/electrostatic-precipitator)
- [Sonic horn](/glossary/sonic-horn)