Simulation-Based Design and Economic Evaluation of a Novel Internally Circulating Fluidized Bed Reactor for Power Production with Integrated CO₂ Capture

• Main Authors: Jan Hendrik Cloete, Mohammed N. Khan, Schalk Cloete, Shahriar Amini
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-10-01
• Series: Processes
• Subjects: chemical looping combustion; power production; carbon capture; internally circulating reactor; reactor design; fluidization; techno-economics; computational fluid dynamics; filtered two-fluid model; coarse-grid simulations
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9717/7/10/723

Limiting global temperature rise to well below 2 °C according to the Paris climate accord will require accelerated development, scale-up, and commercialization of innovative and environmentally friendly reactor concepts. Simulation-based design can play a central role in achieving this goal by decreasing the number of costly and time-consuming experimental scale-up steps. To illustrate this approach, a multiscale computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach was utilized in this study to simulate a novel internally circulating fluidized bed reactor (ICR) for power production with integrated CO₂ capture on an industrial scale. These simulations were made computationally feasible by using closures in a filtered two-fluid model (fTFM) to model the effects of important subgrid multiphase structures. The CFD simulations provided valuable insight regarding ICR behavior, predicting that CO₂ capture efficiencies and purities above 95% can be achieved, and proposing a reasonable reactor size. The results from the reactor simulations were then used as input for an economic evaluation of an ICR-based natural gas combined cycle power plant. The economic performance results showed that the ICR plant can achieve a CO₂ avoidance cost as low as $58/ton. Future work will investigate additional firing after the ICR to reach the high inlet temperatures of modern gas turbines.