Energy and exergy analysis of chemical looping combustion technology and comparison with pre-combustion and oxy-fuel combustion technologies for CO2 capture

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted from conventional coal-based power plants is a growing concern for the environment. Chemical looping combustion (CLC), pre-combustion and oxy-fuel combustion are promising CO2 capture technologies which allow clean electricity generation from coal in an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant. This work compares the characteristics of the above three capture technologies to those of a conventional IGCC plant without CO2 capture. CLC technology is also investigated for two different process configurations—(i) an integrated gasification combined cycle coupled with chemical looping combustion (IGCC–CLC), and (ii) coal direct chemical looping combustion (CDCLC)—using exergy analysis to exploit the complete potential of CLC. Power output, net electrical efficiency and CO2 capture efficiency are the key parameters investigated for the assessment. Flowsheet models of five different types of IGCC power plants, (four with and one without CO2 capture), were developed in the Aspen plus simulation package. The results indicate that with respect to conventional IGCC power plant, IGCC–CLC exhibited an energy penalty of 4.5%, compared with 7.1% and 9.1% for pre-combustion and oxy-fuel combustion technologies, respectively. IGCC–CLC and oxy-fuel combustion technologies achieved an overall CO2 capture rate of ∼100% whereas pre-combustion technology could capture ∼94.8%. Modification of IGCC–CLC into CDCLC tends to increase the net electrical efficiency by 4.7% while maintaining 100% CO2 capture rate. A detailed exergy analysis performed on the two CLC process configurations (IGCC–CLC and CDCLC) and conventional IGCC process demonstrates that CLC technology can be thermodynamically as efficient as a conventional IGCC process.