Modeling and Simulation of an Industrial-Scale 525 MWth Petcoke Chemical Looping Combustion Power Plant

Abstract

This paper presents the modeling and simulation of an industrial-scale chemical looping combustion (CLC) power plant, including all process units (reactors, flue gas treatment units, heat integration, steam cycle, and CO2 compression train). A model of a 525 MWth CLC power plant was built using a rigorous representation of the solid fuel and oxygen carrier. Petcoke was considered the main fuel of interest in this study, and it is compared with other solid fuels. The flue gas compositions obtained with the model show that cleanup units are mandatory to comply with CO2 quality requirements. High levels of flue gas treatment, including 97.1% deNOx and 99.4% deSOx, are needed to achieve typical specifications for captured CO2. This is mainly due to the high level of contaminants in the fuel, but also to the absence of nitrogen in the CLC flue gas, thus resulting in higher concentrations for all substances. The high level of flue gas treatment is thus one of the important challenges for solid fuel combustion in CLC. The overall CO2 capture efficiency of the plant is estimated to be as high as 94%. Regarding the energy balance, a process net efficiency of 38% is obtained. Comparing the results with other available technologies shows that CLC exhibits one of the highest net plant efficiencies and carbon capture rates. CLC is thus a promising technology to produce clean energy from solid fuels. Finally, based on a sensitivity analysis, it is shown that process efficiency is mainly affected by the design and performance of the CLC furnace, the steam injection rate in the fuel reactor, the char separation efficiency, and the excess oxygen in the air reactor.