Volume 11: Sustainable Energy Solutions for Changing the World: Part III

Comparative analysis of two external combustion schemes in the three-step coal gasification technology with CO2 recycling Song He, Lin Gao, Sheng Li

Abstract

Chemical energy conversion has a great influence on the cold gas efficiency of coal gasification technology. In this paper, a three-step gasification technology with CO2 recycling is introduced and two external combustion schemes (CO-fueled chemical looping combustion and unconverted coke combustion) are compared. Results showed that the CO-fueled chemical looping combustion scheme has a higher cold gas efficiency of 90.1%, while cold gas efficiency of the unconverted coke combustion scheme is 88.4%. Before the water gas shift subprocess, the chemical energy conversion efficiency in the unconverted coke combustion scheme is 93.2%, which is 1.6 percentage points higher than that in the CO-fueled chemical looping combustion scheme. However, more chemical energy is consumed for CO2 regeneration in the unconverted coke combustion scheme, which results in chemical energy conversion efficiency decreases from 93.2% to 88.4%. Therefore, better energy matching between reactions can effectively improve the cold gas efficiency of the coal gasification technology. Besides, chemical energy consumption for CO2 regeneration should be reduced for gasification technology adopting CO2 as a gasifying agent.

Keywords Coal gasification, CO2 recycling, Chemical looping combustion, Unconverted coke combustion