Integrated combined cycle from natural gas with CO2 capture using a Ca–Cu chemical loop

Abstract

The integration in a natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) of a novel process for H2 production using a chemical Ca–Cu loop was proposed. This process is based on the sorption‐enhanced reforming process for H2 production from natural gas with a CaO/CaCO3 chemical loop, but including a second Cu/CuO loop to regenerate the Ca‐sorbent. An integration of this system into a NGCC was proposed and a full process simulation exercise of different cases was carried out. Optimizing the operating conditions in the Ca–Cu looping process, 8.1% points of efficiency penalty with respect to a state‐of‐the‐art NGCC are obtained with a CO2 capture efficiency of 90%. It was demonstrated that the new process can yield power generation efficiencies as high as any other emerging and commercial concepts for power generation from NGCC with CO2 capture, but maintaining competing advantages of process simplification and compact pressurized reactor design inherent to the Ca–Cu looping system. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 59: 2780–2794, 2013