Experimental Investigation of Oxygen Carrier Aided Combustion (OCAC) with Methane and PSA Off-Gas

Abstract

Oxygen carrier aided combustion (OCAC) is utilized to promote the combustion of relatively stable fuels already in the dense bed of bubbling fluidized beds by adding a new mechanism of fuel conversion, i.e., direct gas–solid reaction between the metal oxide and the fuel. Methane and a fuel gas mixture (PSA off-gas) consisting of H2, CH4 and CO were used as fuel. Two oxygen carrier bed materials—ilmenite and synthetic particles of calcium manganate—were investigated and compared to silica sand, an in this context inert bed material. The results with methane show that the fuel conversion is significantly higher inside the bed when using oxygen carrier particles, where the calcium manganate material displayed the highest conversion. In total, 99.3–99.7% of the methane was converted at 900 °C with ilmenite and calcium manganate as a bed material at the measurement point 9 cm above the distribution plate, whereas the bed with sand resulted in a gas conversion of 86.7%. Operation with PSA off-gas as fuel showed an overall high gas conversion at moderate temperatures (600–750 °C) and only minor differences were observed for the different bed materials. NO emissions were generally low, apart from the cases where a significant part of the fuel conversion took place above the bed, essentially causing flame combustion. The NO concentration was low in the bed with both fuels and especially low with PSA off-gas as fuel. No more than 11 ppm was detected at any height in the reactor, with any of the bed materials, in the bed temperature range of 700–750 °C.