CO2 Capture from Coal fired Power Plants

• Main Authors: Dugstad, Tore, Jensen, Esben Tonning
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Institutt for energi- og prosessteknikk 2008
• Subjects: ntnudaim; SIE5 energi og miljø; Varme- og energiprosesser
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:no:ntnu:diva-9770

Coal is the most common fossil resource for power production worldwide and generates 40% of the worlds total electricity production. Even though coal is considered a pollutive resource, the great amounts and the increasing power demand leads to extensive use even in new developed power plants. To cover the world's future energy demand and at the same time limit our effect on global warming, coal fired power plants with CO2 capture is probably a necessity. An Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) Power Plant is a utilization of coal which gives incentives for CO2 capture. Coal is partially combusted in a reaction with steam and pure oxygen. The oxygen is produced in an air separation process and the steam is generated in the Power Island. Out of the gasifier comes a mixture of mainly H2 and CO. In a shift reactor the CO and additional steam are converted to CO2 and more H2. Carbon dioxide is separated from the hydrogen in a physical absorption process and compressed for storage. Hydrogen diluted with nitrogen from the air separation process is used as fuel in a combined cycle similar to NGCC. A complete IGCC Power Plant is described in this report. The air separation unit is modeled as a Linde two column process. Ambient air is compressed and cooled to dew point before it is separated into oxygen and nitrogen in a cryogenic distillation process. Out of the island oxygen is at a purity level of 95.6% and the nitrogen has a purity of 99.6%. The production cost of oxygen is 0.238 kWh per kilogram of oxygen delivered at 25°C and 1.4bar. The oxygen is then compressed to a gasification pressure of 42bar. In the gasification unit the oxygen together with steam is used to gasify the coal. On molar basis the coal composition is 73.5% C, 22.8% H2, 3.1% O2, 0.3% N2 and 0.3% S. The gasification temperature is at 1571°C and out of the unit comes syngas consisting of 66.9% CO, 31.1% H2, 1.4% H2O, 0.3% N2, 0.2% H2S and 0.1% CO2. The syngas is cooled and fed to a water gas shift reactor. Here the carbon monoxide is reacted with steam forming carbon dioxide and additional hydrogen. The gas composition of the gas out of the shift reactor is on dry basis 58.2% H2, 39.0% CO2, 2.4% CO, 0.2% N2 and 0.1% H2S. Both the gasification process and shift reactor is exothermal and there is no need of external heating. This leads to an exothermal heat loss, but parts of this heat is recovered. The gasifier has a Cold Gas Efficiency (CGE) of 84.0%. With a partial pressure of CO2 at 15.7 bar the carbon dioxide is easily removed by physical absorption. After separation the solvent is regenerated by expansion and CO2 is pressurized to 110bar to be stored. This process is not modeled, but for the scrubbing part an energy consumption of 0.08kWh per kilogram CO2 removed is assumed. For the compression of CO2, it is calculated with an energy consumption of 0.11kWh per kilogram CO2 removed. Removal of H2S and other pollutive unwanted substances is also removed in the CO2 scrubber. Between the CO2 removal and the combustion chamber is the H2 rich fuel gas is diluted with nitrogen from the air separation unit. This is done to increase the mass flow through the turbine. The amount of nitrogen available is decided by the amount of oxygen produced to the gasification process. Almost all the nitrogen produced may be utilized as diluter except from a few percent used in the coal feeding procedure to the gasifier. The diluted fuel gas has a composition of 50.4% H2, 46.1% N2, 2.1% CO and 1.4% CO2. In the Power Island a combined cycle with a gas turbine able to handle large H2 amounts is used. The use of steam in the gasifier and shift reactor are integrated in the heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) in the steam cycle. The heat removed from the syngas cooler is also recovered in the HRSG. The overall efficiency of the IGCC plant modeled is 36.8%. This includes oxygen and nitrogen production and compression, production of high pressure steam used in the Gasification Island, coal feeding costs, CO2 removal and compression and pressure losses through the processes. Other losses are not implemented and will probably reduce the efficiency.