Method and apparatus for generating energy
AssigneeL'Air Liquide, Societe Anonyme a Directoire et Conseil de Surveillance pour l'Etude et l'Exploitation des Procedes Georges Claude
InventorsJean-Renaud Brugerolle, Francois Fuentes
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Abstract
The invention concerns a method for generating energy, which consists in conveying to an air separation apparatus (5) air from a compressor (1) coupled to an expansion machine (3). A nitrogen-enriched gaseous flow (11) containing between 3 and 18% of oxygen is conveyed to a combustion chamber (19) with a combustible flow (17) and the combustion gases (33) are expanded in the expansion machine. Optionally air from an auxiliary compressor (21) can be conveyed to the combustion chamber.
Claims24
A method of generating energy utilizing an energy generation unit which comprises the steps of:
- i) compressing air in a compressor (1);
- ii) sending all the air compressed in the compressor (1) to an at least one air separation unit (5) in order to produce at least one oxygen-enriched fluid (7) and at least one nitrogen-enriched gas fluid (9, 11) also containing oxygen;
- iii) sending fuel (17) and at least part of the nitrogen-enriched gas (11) to a combustion chamber (19) in order to produce combustion gases (33), the air compressed in the compressor (1) not being sent directly to the combustion chamber;
- and
- iv) expanding the combustion gases in an expansion machine (3) coupled to the compressor in order to recover energy;
- wherein said nitrogen-enriched gas (11) is compressed to a pressure from about 8 bar to about 30 bar before being sent to the combustion chamber.
The method of claim1, wherein the air is compressed by the compressor (1) is from about 8 to about 20 bar.
Energy generating apparatus comprising:
- i) a compressor (1)
- ii) an expansion machine (3) coupled to the compressor;
- iii) a combustion chamber (19);
- iv) an air separation unit (5);
- v) means for sending the air from the compressor to the air separation unit;
- vi) means for sending a nitrogen-enriched gas (11, 15) containing oxygen from the air separation unit to the combustion chamber and no means for sending the compressed air directly from the compressor to the combustion chamber;
- characterized in that it comprises means (13) for compressing the nitrogen-enriched gas before sending it to the combustion chamber.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.