Integrated chemical looping air separation in large-scale oxy-fuel plants
AssigneeNewcastle Innovation Limited
InventorsBehdad Moghtaderi, Terry Fitzgerald Wall, Kalpit Vrajeshkumar Shah
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Abstract
An integrated chemical looping air separation unit (5) in a large-scale oxy-fuel power generating plant takes a portion of recycled flue gas (6) via a recycling conduit (7) through a heat exchanger (8) to a reduction reactor (9). The reduction reactor (9) exchanges oxidized metal oxide with an oxidation reactor (11) via transfer means (10) which return reduced metal oxide from the reduction reactor (9) to the oxidation reactor (11). This enables the reduction reactor (9) to feed a mixture of oxygen and recycled flue gas into the boiler (13) of the power generating plant in a more energy efficient manner than conventional oxy-fuel power plants using air separation units.
Claims17
A method of air separation in large-scale oxy-fuel power generation plants of the type having a boiler to generate steam, said method including the steps of recycling flue gas from the boiler through a reduction reactor that is connected in a chemical looping process with an oxidation reactor such that the reduction reactor produces a mixture of oxygen and recycled flue gas, and feeding said mixture back into the boiler, wherein a controlled proportion of the recycled flue gas is fed through the chemical looping reduction reactor, with the remaining recycled flue gas being fed directly to the boiler.
An apparatus for generating oxygen to be fed into a boiler in a large-scale oxy-fuel power generation plant, said apparatus including a reduction reactor, a flue gas recycling conduit arranged to transfer some of the flue gas emitted in use from the boiler to the reduction reactor and feed the remaining recycled flue gas directly to the boiler, an oxidation reactor connected to the reduction reactor by transfer means arranged to transfer solid particulate material between the reduction reactor and the oxidation reactor, and an outlet conduit arranged to transfer oxygen and recycled flue gas mixture from the reduction reactor back into the boiler.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.