CO₂ Emission Abatement in IGCC Power Plants by Semiclosed Cycles: Part B—With Air-Blown Combustion and CO₂ Physical Absorption

This paper analyzes the fundamentals of IGCC power plants with carbon dioxide removal systems, by a cycle configuration alternative to the one discussed in Part A (with oxygen-blown combustion). The idea behind this proposal is to overcome the major drawbacks of the previous solution (large oxygen consumption and re-design of the gas turbine unit), by means of a semiclosed cycle using air as the oxidizer. Consequently, combustion gases are largely diluted by nitrogen and cannot be simply compressed to produce liquefied CO₂ for storage or disposal. However, CO₂ concentration remains high enough to make separation possible by a physical absorption process. It requires a re-pressurization of the flow subtracted from the cycle, with relevant consequences on the plant energy balance. The configuration and the thermodynamic performance of this plant concept are extensively addressed in the paper. As in the first part, the influence of the pressure ratio is discussed, but values similar to the ones adopted in commercial heavy-duty machines provided here acceptable performance. Proper attention was paid to the impact of the absorption process on the energy consumption. The resulting net overall efficiency is again in the 38–39 percent range, with assumptions fully comparable to the ones of Part A. Finally, we demonstrated that the present scheme enables the use of unmodified machines, but large additional equipment is required for exhausts treatment and CO₂ separation. A final comparison between the two semiclosed cycle concepts was therefore addressed.