(43e) Design, Construction and Operation of a Pilot Scale Integrated Pollutant Removal (IPR) Process for Oxy-Combustion

NETL has built an Integrated Pollutant Removal (IPR^®) system at Jupiter Oxygen’s 15MWth oxy-fuel test facility in Hammond, Indiana. An ASPENPLUS model of this installation is also in use to inform the development of the next stage of the IPR system-development. The installed system is designed to process a slip stream of flue gas from an oxy-coal boiler. This flue is composed primarily of CO₂  (~55%) and water (~30%) with smaller amounts O₂, N₂, Ar and other combustion products such as NO_X and SO_X. The IPR process is designed to output a relatively pure (>90%) CO₂ stream at pipeline pressure while recovering as much energy as possible and integrating that recovery into the overall combustion process. Water condensed from the flue-gas is also recovered. Water-treatment process design is being refined through experimentation.

IPR consists of a spray tower (direct-contact heat exchanger) followed by 4 stages of compression (3, 14, 40 & 140 atm) with intercooling between each stage. The process has been completely instrumented to flow rate, temperature and pressure at each stage. Material samples include gas and liquid throughout IPR, and solids (where they fall out in the first IPR operation – a direct contact heat exchange spray tower). In the field, IPR has shown that the achieved the desired output and has further defined challenges for IPR design and the design of its instrumentation, for example accurate flow measurement of a corrosive/erosive fluid stream, minimizing corrosion in components, and in-stream condensation which also efficiently removes soluble gasses. This paper discusses these challenges, presents results from IPR operation, and identifies opportunities for optimization of an oxy-combustion IPR system, also visiting the design of the system model in ASPEN plus.