Oxidation Of Ventilation Air Methane Research Articles

Will It Be Possible to Put into Practice the Mitigation of Ventilation Air Methane Emissions? Review on the State-of-the-Art and Emerging Materials and Technologies

The work refers to the important problem of methane emissions in relation to the ventilation air methane (VAM) emitted to the atmosphere. VAM is fuel that remains unused in most mines around the world due to the low content of the combustible component in the mixture (0.1–1%). The aim of this article is to present the real problems posed by released VAM in its utilization such as variability of flow, methane concentration, or possible presence of gaseous and non-gaseous pollutants. The paper presents the existing technologies that are ready to be implemented or have a reliable potential to be implemented in the industry and those whose development will have strong influence on the effective reduction in VAM emissions. The methods discussed include enrichment, thermal, and catalytic as well as photocatalytic oxidation. The catalysts dedicated to VAM oxidation were reviewed. The literature studies show that currently developed technologies enable more and more efficient oxidation of VAM. The most technologically advanced implemented solutions are based on the thermal oxidation method in TFRR. Catalytic methods are still at the laboratory research phase, but have been intensively developed and have the potential to be implemented at process scale in the future.

Experimental Research on the Thermal Oxidation of Ventilation Air Methane in a Thermal Reverse Flow Reactor.

The thermal reverse flow reactor is an effective technical equipment for dealing with ventilation air methane, which has been causing a significant greenhouse effect. An experimental study on the thermal oxidation of ventilation air methane in a thermal reverse flow reactor was conducted. A mixture of domestic gas and ambient air was used to simulate ventilation air methane in the experiments, and the methane conversion efficiency was analyzed based on the concentration of combustion products determined by gas chromatography equipment. In addition, the effects of the switching time, the inlet methane concentration, the flow rate, and heat extraction were studied. The experimental results show that the reverse flow reactor system can run under a wide range of operating conditions with autothermal operation and high methane conversion. In addition, this system can even work with methane concentrations as low as 0.30% in the autothermal operation mode without NOx emission. Unlike previous studies, this study shows that the flow rate has little effect on the methane conversion rate in the cyclic steady state over a wide range of operating conditions. In addition, methane conversion and reaction zone change as the inlet methane concentration varies during the reaction process in the cyclic steady state. The combined optimization of operating parameters can effectively improve the stability of the reverse flow reactor system and methane conversion efficiency.

Heat transfer trait simulation of H finned tube in ventilation methane oxidation steam generator for hydrogen production

With the steam obtained by the energy released from ventilation air methane oxidation, the hydrogen production through gasification method is considered more commercial. In order to constrain the steam parameter fluctuation, the shunt honeycomb ceramics are adopted to fill between the heat exchange tubes. However, transient heat transfer characteristics of this kind of heat exchanger have not been fully studied. This paper carried out a numerical simulation study on the transient heat transfer characteristics of H finned tube under periodic reverse-flow conditions. Results show that the existence of shunt honeycomb ceramics enhances the effect of radiation. Gas flow direction reversing destructs the original boundary layer, achieving a sudden rise of the convective heat flux in the new upstream. It takes about 12s to form a new relative stable boundary layer. The apparent heat transfer coefficient achieves a maximum of 108.77 W m−2 K−1 and an average of 99.1 W m−2 K−1.

Industrial-Scale Experimental Study on the Thermal Oxidation of Ventilation Air Methane and the Heat Recovery in a Multibed Thermal Flow-Reversal Reactor

In the present work, an industrial-scale experiment on ventilation air methane (VAM) utilization by a multibed thermal flow-reversal reactor (TFRR) is conducted in China. The influence of the inlet flow rate, feed methane concentration, and cycle time on the temperature distribution of the bed and heat recovery efficiency are investigated. The methane conversion in the studied cases exceeds 97%. The results show that the methane concentration during self-maintained operation of the TFRR without heat recovery should not be less than 0.22 vol % when the inlet flow rate is 103,000 Nm3/h and the cycle time is 300 s. As the inlet flow rate decreases, the lower concentration limit of automatic thermal maintenance increases. The peak temperature of the bed approaches the inlet side as the feed methane concentration increases and the cycle time decreases. The heat recovery efficiency increases linearly with increasing inlet flow rate, rises parabolically with an increasing feed methane concentration, and decreases weakly with increasing cycle time.

Thermodynamic, Economic and Environmental Evaluation of an Improved Ventilation Air Methane-Based Hot Air Power Cycle Integrated with a De-Carbonization Oxy-Coal Combustion Power Plant

Efficient utilization of ventilation air methane (VAM) as well as improving the energy efficiency of de-carbonization oxy-coal combustion power plants are intensively studied for achieving energy savings and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission control. Here, an improved VAM-coal hybrid power generation system, which integrates a VAM-based hot air power cycle with a de-carbonization oxy-coal combustion circulating fluid bed (CFB) power plant was proposed. In the proposed system, part of the boiler flue gas was bypassed to feed the VAM auto-oxidation, and the whole VAM oxidation heat was efficiently utilized to drive a hot air power cycle. Meanwhile, the turbine exhaust air was utilized to heat the feed/condensed water within the regenerative heating trains in a cascade way, which was in turn beneficial to de-carbonization oxy-coal combustion plant. The mass and energy balance of the proposed system were determined using the simulation process. The thermodynamic benefits, economic viability and the environmental impacts were discussed. Results showed that energy efficiency of the proposed system reached 27.1% with the energy saving ratio at 0.9%. The cost of electricity (COE) was $118.15/MWh with the specific CO2 emission as low as 17.46 kg CO2/MWh.

Understanding Structure–Function Relationships in Zeolite-Supported Pd Catalysts for Oxidation of Ventilation Air Methane

Catalytic combustion of ventilation air methane (VAM) is a potential solution for abatement of this greenhouse gas. In this study, we evaluate the combustion of VAM (with methane concentrations below 1%) spanning over 100 h time on stream (TOS) during reaction over a Pd/HZSM-5 catalyst. The aim is to understand the structural changes that lead to catalyst deactivation. We observe the formation of carbonaceous deposits even under oxygen-rich conditions, which are an important contributor to deactivation. X-ray absorption spectroscopic (XAS) investigation shows that, in addition to carbon deposits, the growth of Pd oxide clusters leads to a reduced number of accessible sites and in turn intrinsic activity. STEM-EDS analysis disclosed the presence of the carbonaceous deposit on the surface of the used catalyst, and TGA confirmed the presence of different carbon species on the used catalyst under very lean conditions. Structural changes show that Pd–O/acid–base interactions have a significant influence on the...

A feasibility study on a novel stone dust looping process for abatement of ventilation air methane

This paper describes the development of a novel stone dust looping process that relates to the removal of ventilation air methane using stone dust. The working principle behind the stone dust looping process is incredibly simple which involves the catalytic oxidation of methane followed by carbonation and calcination reactions. In the current work, laboratory scale fluidized bed experiments and process simulations were conducted to evaluate the feasibility of the stone dust looping process. The experimental work concluded that oxidation of ventilation air methane in the stone dust looping process can be successfully achieved at temperatures between 500 and 650°C. The experimental results indicated that oxidation of methane was found to increase at higher temperatures while carbon dioxide capture efficiency showed a declining trend with increasing temperature. Furthermore, higher methane conversion and optimum (thermodynamic) carbon dioxide capture efficiency were observed for lower ventilation air methane flow rates and higher bed inventory. The concentration of methane in ventilation air methane and stone dust particle size did not have a significant effect on methane conversion or carbon dioxide capture. Also, comparison with synthetically prepared CuO and Fe2O3 catalysts has been made with CaO for VAM oxidation. CaO was found to be comparable to Fe2O3 and superior to CuO. From the process simulations, it was concluded that thermal energy generation in the carbonator was increased with higher methane and carbon dioxide concentrations. However, at the same time for higher methane and carbon dioxide concentrations, a greater CaO flux was required in the carbonator and hence a larger amount of goaf gas was required for the calcination reaction. The higher thermal energy generation in the carbonator was expected to improve the autothermicity of the stone dust looping process at concentrations of methane in the ventilation stream <0.2 vol.% (thermodynamic limit).

Experimental and theoretical study of the oxidation of ventilation air methane over Fe2O3 and CuO.

Coal mine ventilation air methane (VAM) is an important contributor to methane emissions from the energy sector. Although various technologies are under development, treatment of the VAM with an efficient and cost-effective approach has been an ongoing challenge due to massive flow rates of the ventilation air and low and variable methane concentrations. Recently a new concept based on the principle of chemical looping combustion (CLC) has been proposed for VAM abatement (Appl. Energy, 2014, 113, 1916), in which oxidation of low-concentration CH4 balanced by N2 with Fe2O3 or CuO as the oxygen carrier was studied. Here, we thoroughly examined the feasibility of CLC of VAM based on experimental study and theoretical calculations. Reduction of Fe2O3 and CuO and evolution of gas products during CH4 oxidation were investigated using TGA-MS under two reaction atmospheres: 1 vol% CH4 balanced by N2 and the simulated VAM containing 1 vol% CH4, 20 vol% O2, 0.4 vol% CO2 and balance N2. It was found that the CLC of VAM is fundamentally infeasible because the reduced phase of Fe2O3 and CuO cannot be formed for chemical looping when reacting with the simulated VAM containing abundant oxygen. Theoretical calculations revealed that Fe2O3 and CuO remain stable without the transition to the reduced phase as the generated oxygen vacancy on the surface of metal oxides during CH4 oxidation can recover quickly with O2 adsorption and dissociation. Calculations confirmed that both Fe2O3 and CuO play a role of surface catalyst in VAM oxidation. More importantly, it was found that the low-coordinated metal atoms and oxygen vacancies can stabilize CHx radicals to promote the dissociation of CH4, which is generally the rate-determining step for CH4 oxidation. Such findings are useful for new development and understanding of high-performance and low-cost metal oxide catalysts for CH4 oxidation.

Fuzzy logic control of a reverse flow reactor for catalytic oxidation of ventilation air methane

Fuzzy logic controllers of type-1 and type-2 were implemented to deal with the high nonlinearities and uncertainties in operation of a reverse flow reactor (RFR) for catalytic oxidation of ventilation air methane (VAM). The results indicated that the fuzzy logic controller is distinctly superior to the traditional logic-based controller and works well under the conditions with high nonlinearities and uncertainties. Owing to the robustness of RFR and particular control aim of regulating bed temperature within a relatively broad range, a fuzzy logic controller of type-1 is sufficient to cope with the uncertainty brought by the extensive variation of VAM concentration.

Study on the Coal Mine Ventilation Air Methane Utilization Technologies Based on Flow-Reversal Oxidation Principle

There is a huge amount of coal mine ventilation air methane emitted into the atmosphere directly each year in china, not only causes a lot of energy was wasted, but also do severe harm to the protection of the environment. The Utilization Technologies of coal mine ventilation air methane (VAM) are receiving more and more attention from people, Aiming at the domestic and international development status of VAM utilization, Thermal flow reversal reactor (TFRR) and catalytic flow reversal reactor (CFRR) are introduced, as two kind of flow-reversal oxidation technology which are the most popular and used widely. The economic and applicability about service life, total cost, space and performance of device are comparative analyzed, and illustrate the trends about the technology of flow-reversal oxidation of VAM from two aspects: to solve the problem of running stability well and improve its work efficiency reasonably. Finally, this paper outlines the future prospect for the development of this technology.

Numerical Simulation of Ventilation Air Methane Counter-Current Oxidation Reaction

In this paper, based on the theoretical analysis and reasonable simplification, one-dimensional mathematical model is presented for the counter-current oxidation of ventilation air methane. The process of counter-current oxidation reaction is simulated by applying the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software (Fluent), and the effect of the dominating working parameters (such as flow velocity and equivalence ratio and half cycle) are discussed on the temperature and rate of reaction within the counter-current oxidation reaction. The distribution of the temperature field and the reaction rate are simulated when half cycle is 30s, the equivalence ratio is 0.2 and the velocity 0.06 m/s, 0.1m/s and 0.2 m/s. The combustion characteristics are summarized for the device of counter-current oxidation reaction, and the effects of working parameters are analyzed on the burning characteristics. It is so important to increase the combustion efficiency and energy utilization.

Utilization of Ventilation Air Methane as a Supplementary Fuel at a Circulating Fluidized Bed Combustion Boiler

Ventilation air methane (VAM) accounts for 60-80% of the total emissions from coal mining activities in China, which is of serious greenhouse gas concerns as well as a waste of valuable fuel sources. This contribution evaluates the use of the VAM utilization methods as a supplementary fuel at a circulating fluidized bed combustion boiler. The paper describes the system design and discusses some potential technical challenges such as methane oxidation rate, corrosion, and efficiency. Laboratory experimentation has shown that the VAM can be burnt completely in circulated fluidized bed furnaces, and the VAM oxidation does not obviously affect the boiler operation when the methane concentration is less than 0.6%. The VAM decreased the incomplete combustion loss for the circulating fluidized bed combustion furnace. The economic benefit from the coal saving insures that the proposed system is more economically feasible.