Formation and Control of Sulfur Oxides in Sour Gas Oxy-Combustion: Prediction Using a Reactor Network Model

Abstract

Sour natural gas currently requires expensive gas cleanup before it can be used in power generation because it contains large amounts of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and carbon dioxide (CO2) that entail a low heating value and highly corrosive combustion products. A potential alternative is to use the gas directly in a gas turbine process employing oxy-fuel combustion, which could eliminate the need for gas cleanup while also enabling the application of carbon capture and sequestration, possibly combined with enhanced oil recovery (EOR). However, the exact influence of an oxy-fuel environment on the combustion products of sour gas has not been quantified yet. In this work, we used a reactor network model for the combustor and the gas turbine together with our recently assembled and validated detailed chemical reaction mechanism for sour gas combustion to investigate the influence of some basic design parameters on the combustion products of natural gas and sour gas in CO2 or H2O diluted oxy-fuel combustion as w...