Investigation of Air Extraction and Carbon Capture in an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) System

Abstract

Coal is one of the major sources of energy currently as it provides up to 38.5% of the total electricity produced in the world. Burning coal produces pollutants and large amounts of CO2, which contribute to climate change, environmental pollution, and health hazards. Therefore, it is our obligation to utilize coal in a cleaner way. Cleaner coal energy can be produced by using an ultra-supercritical Pulverized Coal (PC) power plant, or by employing the Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC). Since the 1970s, the IGCC technology has been developed and demonstrated, but it has still not been widely commercialized. One of the methods to improve IGCC performance is to save the compression power of the air separation unit (ASU) by extracting the compressed air from the exit of the gas turbine as a portion of or the entire air input to the ASU. This paper investigates the effect of various levels of air integration on the IGCC performance. The results show that a moderate air integration ranging from 15% to 20% provides the most effective air-integration. An analysis of implementing a sour-shift pre-combustion carbon capture results in a significant loss of about 5.5 points in efficiency. This study also provides the effect of air integration and carbon capture on emissions including NOx, SOx, CO2, and water consumption.