(368a) Technical Economic Analysis of an Intensified Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle Plant Design Featuring Membrane and Adsorptive Reactors

Currently, coal-based power plants are the largest source of electricity both globally and in the United States, and despite there being an abundant supply of low-priced natural gas, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that by 2040, coal-based power plants will still provide 254.1 GWe of the generation capacity of the United States, and will account for approximately 36% of the total electricity generation capacity globally1,2. For this reason, coal-based power plants have begun considering the adoption of carbon capture technology in order to reduce the quantity of CO2 emissions, since each year in the United States 6,870 million metric tons of greenhouse gases (GHG) are emitted into the atmosphere, and CO2 represents over 80% of these GHG emissions3.

Because of the environmental concerns these emissions evoke, several carbon capture technologies have been proposed and integrated into these coal power plants with the goal to reduce the CO2 emissions by at least 90%. The main process utilized for carbon separation and capture employs absorption with amine-type solvents, whereby CO2 is separated through the use of a Dual-Stage Selexol unit4.

In this work, the design of an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plant featuring membrane and adsorptive reactors is first developed and then analyzed from an economic viewpoint. The design features membrane and adsorptive reactors that have over 90% carbon capture capability without the use of a Dual-Stage Selexol unit. The resultant intensified design is able to produce power more efficiently than traditional IGCC plants with Carbon-Capture Storage (CCS) technology. The UNISIM software (Honeywell trademark) is used to create an intensified flowsheet for the proposed power production plant design, and heat integration studies are presented. A technical economic analysis (TEA) is carried out on the proposed flowsheet to determine economic feasibility of the novel design. The economics of the intensified designs will be compared to a traditional IGCC plant with CCS to identify the extent of process intensification over the baseline design.

1. Annual Energy Outlook 2013, Department of Energy, U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2013.
2. Annual Energy Outlook 2014, Department of Energy, U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2013.
3. Inventory of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and sinks: 1990-2014. Washington, DC: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Print.
4. Department of Energy/National Energy Technology Laboratory. Cost and Performance Baseline for Fossil Energy Plants Volume 1b: Bituminous Coal (IGCC) to Electricity Revision 2b – Year Dollar Update. Document Number: DOE/NETL- 2015/1727.