Mid-long term solutions for coal power plants with near-zero emissions

The present project activity has been focused on the investigation of two different novel concepts, based on the use of IGCC with carbon capture to determine the evolution of the clean coal technologies in the future years. The first system is based on the use of chemical looping combustion (CLC) with packed bed reactors (PBRs); it would represent a mid-term solution: the CLC combustion has been considered in the recent years for pilot plants and the combined use of PBRs with CLC is at the early demonstration stage. The second part of this work is focused on the use of SOFCs in an integrated gasification plant: since the technological level of SOFCs development is not yet ready for industrial applications, SOFCs stack for multi-MW is expected to be proved in the long-term scenario. The study is focused on the development of components modeling such as the PBR and SOFC. A relevant part of the thesis is based on the thermodynamic analysis of the integrated power plants with the new components and the comparison with reference technologies.

Questo progetto è basato sullo studio di 2 diversi sistemi di cattura della CO2 in impianti a ciclo combinato con gassificazione del carbone. Il primo sistema è basato sull’uso di reattori a letti fissi per la chemical looping combustion mentre il secondo sistema è basato sull’integrazione di celle a cobustibili ad ossidi solidi (SOFC). Oltro alla modellizazione dei componenti, lo studio si è soffermato sull’integrazione e l’analisi termodinamica dei possibili impianti per produzione elettrica. Infine i risultati ottenuti sono stati confrontati con le tecnologie di riferimento.