Optimal design and integration of an air separation unit (ASU) for an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant with CO2 capture

The air separation unit (ASU) plays a key role in improving the efficiency, availability, and operability of an oxygen-fed integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant. An optimal integration between the ASU and the balance of the plant, especially the gasifier and the gas turbine (GT), has significant potential for enhancing the overall plant efficiency. Considering the higher operating pressure of the GT, an elevated-pressure air separation unit (EP-ASU) is usually favored instead of the conventional low-pressure air separation units (LP-ASU). In addition, a pumped liquid oxygen (PLOX) cycle is usually chosen if the operating pressure of the gasifier is high. A PLOX cycle helps to improve plant safety and availability and to decrease the capital cost by reducing the size of the oxygen compressor or by eliminating it completely. However, the refrigeration lost in withdrawn liquid oxygen must be efficiently recovered. This paper considers five different configurations of an ASU with PLOX cycle and compares their power consumptions with an EP-ASU with a traditional gaseous oxygen (GOX) cycle. The study shows that an optimally designed EP-ASU with a PLOX cycle can have similar power consumption to that of an EP-ASU with GOX cycle in the case of 100% nitrogen integration. In the case of an IGCC with pre-combustion CO₂ capture, the lower heating value (LHV) of the shifted syngas, both on a mass and volumetric basis, is in between the LHV of the unshifted syngas from an IGCC plant and the LHV of natural gas, for which the GTs are generally designed. The optimal air integration in the case of a shifted syngas is found to be much lower than that of an unshifted syngas. This paper concurs with the existing literature that the optimal integration occurs when air extracted from the GT can be replaced with the nitrogen from the ASU without exceeding mass/volumetric flow limitations of the GT. Considering nitrogen and air integration between the ASU and the GT, this paper compares the power savings in an LP-ASU with a PLOX cycle to the power savings in an EP-ASU with GOX cycle and EP-ASU with PLOX cycle. The results show that an LP-ASU with a PLOX cycle has less power consumption if the nitrogen integration levels are less than 50-60%. In addition, a study is carried out by varying the concentration of nitrogen and steam in the fuel diluents to the GT while the NOx level was maintained constant. The study shows that when the nitrogen injection rate exceeds 50%, an EP-ASU with a PLOX cycle is a better option than an LP-ASU with a PLOX cycle. This paper shows that an optimal design and integration of an ASU with the balance of the plant can help to increase the net power generation from an IGCC plant with CO₂ capture.     

Performance analysis of integrated biomass gasification fuel cell (BGFC) and biomass gasification combined cycle (BGCC) systems

Biomass gasification processes are more commonly integrated to gas turbine based combined heat and power (CHP) generation systems. However, efficiency can be greatly enhanced by the use of more advanced power generation technology such as solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC). The key objective of this work is to develop systematic site-wide process integration strategies, based on detailed process simulation in Aspen Plus, in view to improve heat recovery including waste heat, energy efficiency and cleaner operation, of biomass gasification fuel cell (BGFC) systems. The BGFC system considers integration of the exhaust gas as a source of steam and unreacted fuel from the SOFC to the steam gasifier, utilising biomass volatilised gases and tars, which is separately carried out from the combustion of the remaining char of the biomass in the presence of depleted air from the SOFC. The high grade process heat is utilised into direct heating of the process streams, e.g. heating of the syngas feed to the SOFC after cooling, condensation and ultra-cleaning with the Rectisol^® process, using the hot product gas from the steam gasifier and heating of air to the SOFC using exhaust gas from the char combustor. The medium to low grade process heat is extracted into excess steam and hot water generation from the BGFC site. This study presents a comprehensive comparison of energetic and emission performances between BGFC and biomass gasification combined cycle (BGCC) systems, based on a 4th generation biomass waste resource, straws. The former integrated system provides as much as twice the power, than the latter. Furthermore, the performance of the integrated BGFC system is thoroughly analysed for a range of power generations, ～100–997 kW. Increasing power generation from a BGFC system decreases its power generation efficiency (69–63%), while increasing CHP generation efficiency (80–85%).     

Control strategies for flexible operation of power plant with CO2 capture plant

About 20% power output penalties will be incurred for implementing CO₂ capture from power plant. This loss can be partially compensated by flexible operation of capture plant. However, daily large variations of liquid and gas flows may cause operation problems to packed columns. Control schemes were proposed to improve the flexibility of power output without causing substantial hydraulic disturbances in capture plant is presented. Simulations were implemented using ASPEN Plus. In varying lean solvent flow strategy, the flow rate of recycling solvent was manipulated to control the CO₂ capture rate. The liquid flow of the absorber and gas flow of the stripper will vary substantially. In an alternative strategy, the lean solvent loading will be varied. Variation of gas throughput in the stripper is avoided by recycling part of CO₂ vapor to stripper. This strategy provided more stable hydraulics condition in both columns and is recommended for flexible operation. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2012     

Techno-economic evaluation of a PVAm CO2-selective membrane in an IGCC power plant with CO2 capture

Published data for an operating power plant, the ELCOGAS 315 MWe Puertollano plant, has been used as a basis for the simulation of an integrated gasification combined cycle process with CO₂ capture. This incorporated a fixed site carrier polyvinylamine membrane to separate the CO₂ from a CO-shifted syngas stream. It appears that the modified process, using a sour shift catalyst prior to sulphur removal, could achieve greater than 85% CO₂ recovery at 95 vol% purity. The efficiency penalty for such a process would be approximately 10% points, including CO₂ compression. A modified plant with CO₂ capture and compression was calculated to cost €2320/kW, producing electricity at a cost of 7.6 € cents/kWh and a CO₂ avoidance cost of about €40/tonne CO₂.     

The multi-period optimisation of an amine-based CO2 capture process integrated with a super-critical coal-fired power station for flexible operation

In this work, we present a model of a super-critical coal-fired power plant integrated with an amine-based CO₂ capture process. We use this model to solve a multi-period dynamic optimisation problem aimed at decoupling the operation of the power plant from the efficiency penalty imposed by the CO₂ capture plant, thus providing the power plant sufficient flexibility to exploit price variation within an electricity market. We evaluate four distinct scenarios: load following, solvent storage, exhaust gas by-pass and time-varying solvent regeneration. The objective is to maximise the decarbonised power plant's short run marginal cost profitability. It is found that while the solvent storage option provides a marginal improvement of 4% in comparison to the load following scenario, the exhaust gas bypass scenario results in a profit reduction of 17% whereas the time-varying solvent regeneration option increases the profitability of the power plant by 16% in comparison to the reference scenario.     

Process analysis for polygeneration of Fischer-Tropsch liquids and power with CO2 capture based on coal gasification

This paper designs four cases to investigate the performances of the polygeneration processes, which depend on the commercially ready technology to convert coal to liquid fuels (CTL) and electricity with CO₂ sequestration. With Excel-Aspen Plus based models, mass and energy conversion are calculated in detail. The simulation shows that the thermal efficiency is down with the synfuels yield decrease though the electricity generation is increased. It also suggests that the largest low heat value (LHV) loss of coal occurs in the gasification unit. From the comparison of the four cases, prominent differences of coal energy transition appear in water-gas shift (WGS) units, Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis and combined cycle processes. CO₂ capture and vent are discussed and the results show that the vent amount of CO₂ increases with the increase of percentage of the syngas going to produce electricity. The results also show that the ratio of carbon captured to total carbon increases from 58% to 93% which is an important contribution to cutting down the greenhouse gas vent.     

Experimental investigation of a 125 kW twin-fire fixed bed gasification pilot plant and comparison to the results of a 2 MW combined heat and power plant (CHP)

Fixed bed biomass gasification is a promising technology to produce heat and power from a renewable energy source. A twin-fire fixed bed gasifier based CHP plant was realized in the year 2003 in Wr. Neustadt, Austria. Wood chips are used as fuel, which are dried and sieved before being gasified to a low calorific gas of about 5.8 MJ/Nm³_dry. Before the clean gas is fed into a gas engine a cyclone and a RME (rapemethylester)/H₂O quench system followed by a wet electrostatic precipitator (ESP) is used for gas cleaning. The CHP plant has a fuel power of 2 MW_th and an electric output of 550 kW_el. As scale up and optimization tool a hot test rig with a capacity of 125 kW_th was built. Basic parameters like the type of wood chips, power and air distribution were varied to investigate the effect on gas composition, tar content in the producer gas and carbon content in the ash. Additionally a temperature profile over the height of the 125 kW hot test rig was measured. Furthermore, the results from the hot test rig are discussed and compared with the results from the 2 MW_th demonstration plant.     

660MW燃煤机组百万吨CO_2捕集系统技术经济分析

为了解常规燃煤机组碳捕集系统的技术经济性,以基准情景为基础,根据国内某10万t CO_2燃烧后捕集系统的投资情况,利用生产能力指数法对5种脱碳情景的投资进行估算。在保证内部收益率为8%的前提下,分析了5种脱碳情景的上网电价、CO_2综合减排成本及其敏感性。结果表明,CO_2综合减排成本中,厂内碳捕集成本比例最大;随着燃料价格的上涨,CO_2综合减排成本逐渐增加;随着CO_2综合收益的增加,上网电价可以逐渐下降。     

Performance assessment and system optimization of a combined cycle power plant (CCPP) based on exergoeconomic and exergoenvironmental analyses

We propose a systematic approach for performance evaluation and improvement of a combined cycle power plant (CCPP). Exergoeconomic and exergoenvironmental analyses are used to assess CCPP performance and suggest improvement potentials in economic and environmental aspects, respectively. Economic and environmental impacts of individual system components are calculated by cost functions and life cycle assessments. Both analyses are based on a CCPP case study located in Turkey, which consists of two gas turbine cycles and a steam turbine cycle with two different pressure heat recovery units. The results of the exergoeconomic analysis indicate that the combustion chamber and condenser have a high performance improvement potential by increasing capital cost. Furthermore, the exergoenvironmental analysis shows that the exergy destruction of the steam turbine and combustion chamber and/or the capacity of heat recovery units must be reduced in order to improve environmental performance. This study demonstrates that combined exergoeconomic and exergoenvironmental analyses are useful for finding improvement potentials for system optimization by simultaneously evaluating economic and environmental impacts.     

A multi-objective analysis for the retrofit of a pulverized coal power plant with a CO2 capture and compression process

The long term sustainability of fossil energy systems depends on reducing their carbon footprint and freshwater consumption. Much of the United States is or will be experiencing water shortages in the near future. Since power generation accounts for about a third of all freshwater use, reducing freshwater requirements will be of increasing importance. In addition, recent reports indicate that adding a carbon capture system may double water consumption. Thus, when designing a carbon capture and compression system, it is important to consider not only the direct costs, but also the increased environmental burden associated with increased freshwater requirements. To address these interrelated sustainability issues, a modular framework for multi-objective analysis was developed and demonstrated by minimizing freshwater consumption and levelized cost of electricity for the retrofit of a hypothetical 550 MW subcritical pulverized coal power plant with an MEA-based carbon capture and compression system.     

Homogeneous reduction of nitrobenzene to aniline under CO/H2O, catalyzed by cis-[Rh(CO)2(amine)2]PF6. The role of the amine effect

The CO₂ reforming of methane over reduced NiO/MgO solid solution catalysts was studied at 800°C by a novel transient method, which couples a broadened pulse of CH₄/CO₂ with a step change to the carrier gas and/or with a sharp isotopic pulse of either ¹⁸O₄, CO¹⁸ ₂ or ¹³CO¹⁶ ₂. The response curves indicated that two kinds of oxygen were formed over the catalysts during reaction: adsorbed oxygen which reacts fast with C species and lattice oxygen which reacts more slowly with C species. One concludes that a redox cycle of lattice oxygen formation through the oxidation of Ni and its reaction with C species takes place on the catalyst surface. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Relationship of manganese with iron and zinc with respect to latex yield and composition in opium poppy (Papaver somniferum Linn) under two fertility conditions

Two different field experiments were conducted for two years during 1985–86 and 1986–87 to study the relationship of Mn (0, 15 and 30 kg ha^–1) with Fe (0, 15 and 30 kg ha^–1) and Zn (0, 10 and 20 kg ha^–1) under two fertility (NPK) conditions on yield and quality of opium poppy. The main effect of these micronutrients with respect to latex yield was highest at 15 kg ha^–1 of Mn or Fe and 10 kg ha^–1 Zn. Increasing the level beyond that resulted in reduction in latex yield. Highest response was observed when 15 kg ha^–1 Mn was applied with either 15 kg ha^–1 Fe or 10 kg ha^–1 Zn. Morphine, codeine, narcotine and thebaine content of the latex was highest with 15 kg Mn, 15 kg Fe or 10 kg ha^–1 Zn or the combined application of 15 kg Mn with 15 kg Fe or 10 kg Zn ha^–1.CIMAP Publication No. 961     

低品位钼镍焙烧矿常压同时浸出钼镍的工艺研究

以低品位的钼镍矿石为原料与CaO混合高温焙烧,所得焙烧矿采用常压氨-碳铵浸出,对同时浸出镍和钼的工艺条件进行了研究。探讨了温度、液固比、浸出时间、碳酸铵的用量等因素对钼和镍浸出率的影响。结果表明,在浸出温度45℃,液固比4∶1(mL/g),浸出时间24h,碳酸铵用量w((NH4)2CO3)∶w(焙烧矿)=0.3的最佳浸出条件下,钼和镍的浸出率分别为94.0%和90.1%。     

Effective oxidation of alcohols to aldehydes with hydrogen peroxide catalyzed by Pd (OAc)2/SO under solvent-free conditions

With oxygen that was supplied by hydrogen peroxide as oxidant, secondary and primary aliphatic alcohols, primary allylic alcohols could be efficiently oxidized to aldehydes or ketones in high yields in the presence of Pd (OAc)₂−sodium oxalate (SO) under solvent-free conditions, it is a high yielding and operationally simple method. Acetic acid is testified to attend the reaction, the acetate ligands are environed to serve two purposes: as a ligand for the Pd^II center and as a base to deprotonate the Pd-bound alcohol, but acetic acid has not shown in previous bidentate ligands systems, so a mechanism is proposed on the basis of the mechanisms reported by the pioneers.     

Feasibility study and benefit analysis of biomass-derived energy production strategies with a MILP (mixed-integer linear programming) model: Application to Jeju Island,Korea

We developed a new approach to analyze the feasibility and benefits of biomass utilization strategies for energy production. To achieve this goal, we first generated a biomass-to-energy network which consists of different conversion technologies and corresponding compounds. We then developed new optimization models using a mixed integer linear programming technique to identify the optimal and alternative strategies and point out their major cost drivers. We applied these models to the biomass-derived energy supply problem on Jeju Island, Korea, to answer a wide range questions related to biomass utilization. What is the cheapest way to produce liquid fuels from available biomass on Jeju Island? How much demand can be satisfied by biomass-derived liquid fuels? What combination of technologies and biomass resources gives the best economic benefits or productivity? Based on the case study of Jeju Island, we could provide useful guidelines to policy-makers and stakeholders in the energy business.     

X-ray absorption fine structure analysis of local structure of CeO2–ZrO2 mixed oxides with the same composition ratio (Ce/Zr=1)

Three types of CeO₂–ZrO₂ (Ce:Zr=1:1 molar ratio) compounds with different oxygen storage/release capacities (OSCs) were characterized by means of the Ce K-edge and Zr K-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS). In order to investigate the relationship between the OSC and local structure, the quantitative EXAFS curve-fitting analysis was applied. By enhancing the homogeneity of the Ce and Zr atoms in the CeO₂–ZrO₂ solid solution, the OSC performance increased. Especially, the atomically homogeneous Ce_0.5Zr_0.5O₂ solid solution exhibited the highest OSC among these CeO₂–ZrO₂ samples. Additionally, the local oxygen environment around Ce and Zr was remarkably modified by enhancing the homogeneity of the CeO₂–ZrO₂ solid solution. It was postulated that the enhancement of the homogeneity of the CeO₂–ZrO₂ solid solution and the modification of the oxygen environment would be the source for the OSC improvement.     

Alkali-free synthesis of a novel heterostructured CeO2-TiO2 nanocomposite with high performance to reduce Cr(VI) under visible light

In this study, a novel CeO₂-TiO₂ nanocomposite denoted as CeO₂-3TiO₂ was successfully synthesized via a facile one pot hydro-thermal method without alkali. It exhibits high photocatalytic reduction reactivity toward Cr(VI) under visible light. The photocatalytic reactivity of CeO₂-3TiO₂ is 18 times higher than that of pure CeO₂, 28 times higher than pure TiO₂, 15 times higher than the sample of simply mixed CeO₂ and TiO₂. The solution with Cr(VI) initial concentration of 2780 ppb can be fast photoreduced by CeO₂-3TiO₂ in 60 min under visible light to meet the criterion of U.S. Environmental protection Agency. Characterization results indicate CeO₂-3TiO₂ has the good crystal form of heterojunction structure, narrow pore size distribution, narrow energy gap and high photogenerated electron-hole separation efficiency. Based on the experimental results, a speculated photocatalytic mechanism was proposed.     

2,5-二(二乙氨基甲基)对苯二酚在过氧化氢氧化苯甲醇制备苯甲酸中的应用研究

以30%过氧化氢作为氧化剂,对苯二酚与甲醛、二乙胺的Mannich反应产物2,5-二(二乙氨基甲基)对苯二酚与钨酸钠为催化剂,研究了苯甲醇氧化制备苯甲酸的反应,2,5-二(二乙氨基甲基)对苯二酚的辅助催化性能优于对苯二酚。最佳反应条件为:40.5mmol苯甲醇,n(钨酸钠)∶n(2,5-二(二乙氨基甲基)对苯二酚)∶n(苯甲醇)∶n(30%过氧化氢)=0.405∶0.489∶40.5∶273,3mL0.1mol/L硫酸,于95℃反应8h,在无有机溶剂的条件下苯甲醇可以被氧化为苯甲酸,一次结晶率为76.9%,催化体系的重复使用性能不太理想。