Thermodynamic modeling of solid fuel gasification in mixtures of oxygen and carbon dioxide

Abstract

One of the main problems in the use of solid fuels is inevitable formation of significant amounts of carbon dioxide. The prospects for reducing CO2 emissions (carbon capture and storage, CCS) are opening up with the use of new coal technologies, such as thermal power plants with integrated gasification (IGCC) and transition to oxygen-enriched combustion (oxyfuel). In order to study the efficiency of solid fuel conversion processes using carbon dioxide, thermodynamic modeling was carried out. Results show that difference between efficiency of fuel conversion in O2/N2 and O2/CO2 mixtures increases with an increase in the volatile content and a decrease in the carbon content. The effect of using CO2 as a gasification agent depends on the oxygen concentration: at low oxygen concentrations, the process temperature turns out to be low due to dilution; at high oxygen concentrations, the CO2 concentration is not high enough for efficient carbon conversion.