(128e) Development and Evaluation of the Gasification Technology as Alternative Power Generation

The technology of gasification transforms any fossil fuels such as natural gas, coal, liquid or solid refinery residues or heavy oils into a synthesis gas, also called syngas, for subsequent utilisation as combustible gas. Also, biomass and wastes can be used as feed fuel.

In the past years, the Instituto de Investigaciones Eléctricas (IIE) has been working on economical and technical evaluation studies of the gasification technology as an alternative for power generation.

Despite being considered as an expensive technology compared to other technologies for power generation, the gasification technology as Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) is quite attractive in many ways since it offers a clean path to power generation; sulphur and heavy metals can be removed from the syngas and the CO₂ can be sequestered and stored in special places, avoiding the traditional contamination to the atmosphere.

Nowadays, the main energy companies in Mexico, PEMEX and CFE, are interested in the potential that the gasification technology offers for power generation in the following 5 to 10 years. In that sense, the IIE began to develop an ambitious research and technological development project to gather the knowledge of the technology and to gain expertise, in particular on the topics related to (1) thermodynamics and kinetics of the chemical reactions inside of the gasification reactor, (2) hot clean-up syngas systems, (3) liquid residual feedstock systems, and (4) modelling processes using Computer Fluid Dynamic (CFD) tools.

The project has been planned in various stages aiming to design a research pilot plant gasifier. In this first stage, a study of the behaviour of the syngas production in function of the composition of the fuel, temperature and pressure has been carried out, using a computational commercial program with a general model for gasification. The fuels used are bituminous coal and refinery residues such as the liquid vacuum distillation residues and the petroleum coke. It is important to notice that all the feedstock are Mexican fuels, in which the refinery residues have relative high sulphur and metals concentration, and the bituminous coal is from MICARE mine, at the north of the country, with relative high ash concentration. The results obtained of the syngas behaviour and its comparison with those reported in the open literature allowed us to modify parts of the experimental prototype gasification system design.

In a following stage, a gasification system at laboratory level will be constructed. Also, a CFD models for the gasification of Mexican feedstocks will be developed. The experimental results will validate the computational models.

REFERENCES

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