Abstract
Petroleum coke (petcoke) is a by-product of heavy petroleum refining, with heating values comparable to that of coal. It is readily available in oil-producing countries such as the United States of America (USA) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) at minimum costs and can be used as an inexpensive fossil fuel for power generation. Oxy-petcoke combustion is an attractive CO2 capture option as it avoids the use of additional absorption units and chemicals, and results in a CO2 + H2O flue gas stream that is compressed and dehydrated in a CO2 capture and purification unit (CO2CPU). The additional cost of the CO2CPU can be reduced through high pressure combustion. Hence, this paper reports a techno-economic analysis of an oxy-petcoke plant with CO2 capture simulated at pressures between 1 and 15 bars in Aspen PlusTM based on USA and KSA scenarios. Operating at high pressures leads to reduced equipment sizes and numbers of units, specifically compressors in CO2CPU, resulting in increased efficiencies and decreased costs. An optimum pressure of ~10 bars was found to maximize the plant efficiency (~29.7%) and minimize the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), cost of CO2 avoided and cost of CO2 captured for both the USA and KSA scenarios. The LCOE was found to be moderately sensitive to changes in the capital cost (~0.7% per %) and increases in cost of petcoke (~0.5% per USD/tonne) and insensitive to the costs of labour, utilities and waste treatment.
Highlights
According to the 2016 Paris Agreement, crucial steps are required to mitigate the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and thereby limit the earth temperature increase to 2 ◦ C above pre-industrial levels
This study considers two country-scenarios where petcoke is readily available: the United States of America (USA) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA)
The present paper presents a techno-economic Aspen PlusTM model of an integrated high-pressure oxy-combustion power plant that uses petcoke as fuel
Summary
According to the 2016 Paris Agreement, crucial steps are required to mitigate the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and thereby limit the earth temperature increase to 2 ◦ C above pre-industrial levels. One option is to capture CO2 from fossil fuel combustion processes. Due to increased heavy oil production, petroleum coke (petcoke), a by-product of petroleum refining, is readily available in oil-producing countries at economical costs [1]. Petcoke has a high heating value, which makes it a viable option for economical energy production [2]. There are three main approaches to capture CO2 in fossil fuel combustion processes [3]: Post combustion: CO2 is removed from the flue gas using techniques such as absorption. Pre combustion: Pre-reformed fuel is used, where, after reformation, CO2 is removed from the fuel before combustion
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