Coal-CO2 Slurry Feed for Pressurized Gasifiers: Slurry Preparation System Characterization and Economics

Abstract

Gasification-based plants with coal-CO2 slurry feed are predicted to be more efficient than those with coal-water slurry feed. This is particularly true for high moisture, low rank coal such as lignite. Nevertheless, preparation of the CO2 slurry is challenging and the losses associated with this process have not been accounted for in previous analyses. This work introduces the Phase Inversion-based Coal-CO2 Slurry (PHICCOS) feeding system, in which coal-CO2 slurry is prepared at ambient temperature via coal-water slurry. Steady-state process simulation is used to estimate the performance of the proposed slurry preparation and feeding system for bituminous coal and lignite. An Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plant with carbon capture is used here as a potential application, but this concept is applicable to any high-pressure coal feeding process. The economic attractiveness of the PHICCOS feeding system is assessed through calculation of its capital costs and resulting levelized cost of electricity, relative to competing commercial technologies. The findings of this work show that the PHICCOS feeding system offers a good tradeoff between overall process performance and costs. It is the most cost-effective method for feeding lignite and the second most attractive for bituminous coal, for which the competing technology is marginally cheaper. The PHICCOS feeding system is hence the only feeding system which is consistently cost-effective across the entire coal rank spectrum and is increasingly so for high-moisture and high-ash coal.