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Investigation of the Gasification Performance of Lignite Feedstock and the Injection Design of an E-Gas Like Gasifier

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Investigation of the Gasification Performance of Lignite Feedstock and the Injection Design of an E-Gas Like Gasifier Proceedings of the 29th Annual International Pittsburgh Coal Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, October 15 - 18, 2012 Investigation of the Gasification Performance of Lignite Feedstock and the Injection Design of an E-Gas like Gasifier Yan-Tsan Luan and Yau-Pin Chyou* Ting Wang Chemistry Division Energy Conversion & Conservation Center Institute of Nuclear Energy Research University of New Orleans Atomic Energy Council New Orleans, Louisiana 70148, USA Longtan, Taoyuan, Taiwan (R.O.C.) ABSTRACT CO2 capture among the four reference power plants: coal In the last three years, the Institute of Nuclear Energy combustion, integrated gasification combine cycle (IGCC), Research (INER) has been developing the E-GAS gasification oxy-combustion, and natural-gas combustion. In the second numerical model and analyzing the gasification performance column, coal pre-combustion carbon capture has the lowest by conducting several parametric studies. A preliminary cost of CO2 avoided, which makes it more competitive and a numerical model considering coal particles tracking, two-step welcoming choice when it comes to low-carbon electricity volatiles thermal cracking, and nine chemical reactions has generation. With its inherence of low emissions and cost been established. In last year’s results, the single lateral including CCS, IGCC has the potential to replace traditional injector design in the 2nd stage of E-GAS gasifier is found PC plants. Therefore, conducting research in coal gasification non-ideal for the gasificaiton process. Therefore, one of the and CO2 capture technology to improve its availability, objectives in this study is to modify the 2nd stage injection increase its efficiency, and reduce the cost is essential for and investigate its effect on gasification performance. achieving sustainability of energy utilization. Moreover, because of rising interest in the use of low-rank coals as the feedstock for power plants, the second goal in this paper is to investigate the gasifciation features by using North Dakota (N.D.) Lignite as the feedstock. The result shows that a dual-injector design (either tangential or opposing jets) in the 2nd stage injection of E-GAS gasifier can minimize the non-ideal recirculation zone and improve the gasification performance. Furthermore, a tangential injection design can make the average temperature reach equilibrium more quickly, so the height of the E-GAS gasifier could therefore be shortened. Moreover, by examining the energy needed for the 2nd stage injection, a tangential Fig. 1 Growth in total primary energy demand [1] injection design saves more energy as compared to the opposing-jets design. The result of the assessment of N.D. Lignite shows that under the same condition of O2/Coal and Coal/Slurry ratios, no matter what the feedstock flow rate or the total input heating value, the gasification performance of N.D. Lignite is always lower than that of Illinois #6 Coal. However, the cheaper price of N.D. Lignite makes it more competitive, and if the electricity generating industries can accept a lower gasification performance, the usage of N.D. Lignite can be a choice to be considered. Key words: gasification CFD modeling, low-rank coal, E-GAS entrained-flow gasifier, clean coal technology Fig. 2 The average cost and performance impact of adding CO2 capture in OECD countries [1] 1. INTRODUCTION According to the data from Bureau of Energy of Taiwan 1.1 Background [2], the primary energy supply situation of Taiwan in 2010 is as follows: coal (32.09%), oil (49.04%), natural gas (10.16%), According to the data from IEA (Fig. 1) [1], the and nuclear power (8.28%). Only considering the electricity increasing demand for coal dominates the demand for all other generation in 2010, the gross power generation reached energy sources in the last ten years. The task to meet the 247,045.4 GWh, which has an increase of 7.55% from 2009. energy demand and achieve the low-carbon emission goal has The electricity generation consisted of fossil-fuel fired power become an urgent issue world-wide in the past decade. 79.79%, nuclear power 16.85%, and geothermal, solar and Compared to the other fossil-fuel resources such as crude oil wind power 0.42%. In 2008, the government set the following and natural gas, coal has the largest reserves and least objective and prospect: (1) raise energy efficiency by 2% expensive price for producing electricity. Figure 2 shows the yearly over the next 8 years, (2) develop clean energy and comparison of average cost and performance impact of adding *Corresponding author (e-mail: [email protected]) 1 reduce CO2 emission in 2025 to the amount of emission in mathematical model and assessed the influences of the input 2000, (3) ensure a stable energy supplement. operating parameters. They concluded that: (1) an increase of Considering the guiding principle of the sustainable oxygen/fuel ratio significantly increases the carbon energy policy and the prospect that fossil-fuel fired power conversion, resulting in slightly decreased H2 concentration plants will still be the main source of electricity generation in and increased CO concentration in the product gas; (2) an Taiwan as well as world-wide in the next few decades, the increase in the steam/fuel ratio increases the H2 and CO2 goal for Taiwan’s energy policy is to forge ahead toward a concentration, but it decreases the CO concentration; (3) an high efficiency, environment friendly, affordable, and stable increase in the operating pressure can increase the degree of supplement energy development. carbon conversion particularly at high steam/fuel ratios; and The Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (INER) is one (4) small fuel particles cause higher carbon conversion energy RD&D organization in Taiwan. INER has been efficiencies for a given mass feed rate. devoted to developing clean coal technology and in 2012 Over the past few years, comprehensive research has started to construct a demonstration gasification facility.. been devoted to the gasification process and performance via Since 2009, the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model CFD modeling [7-19]. Chen et al. [20] implemented a was developed to investigation and gain knowledge of the three-dimensional model to simulate a 200-ton, two-stage air- gasification process in entrained-bed gasifiers. Several blown entrained type gasifier developed for an IGCC process. achievements have been accomplished in the last two years. In The numerical analysis showed turbulent fluctuations 2010, the gasification model was simplified by assuming that affected the volatiles and char-oxygen reactions and the carbon solid was instantaneously gasified; the reaction rate significantly influenced the temperature and gas composition. of each reaction was determined by the turbulence eddies via Furthermore, Chen et al. [21] also found carbon conversion the Eddy-Dissipation Model [3, 4]. In 2011, a more realistic is independent of the devolatilization rate and less sensible to Finite-Rate Model was employed to replace the previous coal particle size, but it is sensitive to the heterogeneous instantaneous gasification model [5]. Moreover, heat and char-oxygen, char-CO2, and char-steam reaction kinetics. momentum transfer between coal particles and the Since 2005, numerous attempts have been made by the stoichiometric tracking method considering the turbulence research team of the Energy Conversion & Conservation effect were investigated as well by the Discrete Phase Model Center (ECCC) at the University of New Orleans [22-28] to (DPM). This comprehensive CFD model has significantly develop a gasification numerical model through contributed to the investigation and understanding of the ANSYS/FLUENT. The model is based on a two-stage, thermal-flow behavior in the unique design of E-GAS gasifier. entrained-flow gasifier following the geometry and input Several operating parameters including O2/Coal ratio, parameters of Bockelie et al. [10] and Chen et al. [20]. They coal slurry concentration ratio, and 1st-2nd stage fuel feeding investigated various operating conditions, and the results are distribution ratio have been studied in [5]. During the previous summarized as follows [23]: (1) coal powder feedstock tends study, it was discovered that the strong lateral single injection to generate more CO and a higher exit temperature than coal design in the 2nd stage of the existing E-Gas gasifier slurries with equivalent coal mass flow rate; (2) the exit gases produced a non-ideal large lopsided flow recirculation of oxygen-blown gasifiers have higher mole concentrations condition that might impede gasification performance in of CO2 and CO than that of air-blown gasifiers; (3) one-stage syngas-production uniformity and flow efficiency. Hence, one operation yields higher H2, CO, and CH4 than if a two-stage of the objectives of this paper is to investigate the potential operation is used but with a lower syngas heating value. benefits of modifying, in the second stage, a single-injection Silaen and Wang [22] found that the water-gas-shift to a twin tangential-injection arrangement. Considering cold (WGS) rate plays an important role in predicting syngas flow study, either experimentally or computationally, has composition, and the reaction rate of the WGS, adopted from often been used as a fast first-step preliminary study of flow Jones and Lindstedt [29], is found to be too fast because the pattern in a gasifier. Hence, the second objective is to compare rate was obtained with the presence of a catalyst. Considering the cold flow pattern with the reactive hot flow pattern and that no catalyst is added in a typical gasifier, the water shift provide an insight into how much the cold flow pattern can be reaction rate is purposely slowed down to make the syngas trusted. In recent years, the usage of low-rank coal has been composition consistent with syngas in the actual production promoted because of its abundant reserves and low cost.
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