Plasma gasification of carbonaceous wastes: thermodynamic analysis and experiment

Thermodynamic calculations of the plasma gasification process of carbonaceous wastes in air and steam ambient were carried out. A maximum yield of synthesis gas in such processes is predicted to be achieved at a temperature of 1600 K. On a specially developed plasma facility, plasma gasification experiments were performed for carbonaceous wastes. From the organic mass of carbonaceous waste and from its mineral mass, respectively, a high-calorific syngas and a neutral slag consisting predominantly of ferric carbide, calcium monosilicate, silica and iron, were obtained. A comparison between the experiment and the calculations has shown a good consistency between the data.     

Development of plasma pyrolysis/gasification systems for energy efficient and environmentally sound waste disposal

As more efficient and reliable torches for thermal plasma generation have become available in recent years, the use of thermal plasma as an energy source for pyrolysis/gasification has attracted much interest, and special attention has been paid to waste treatment for resource and energy recovery. Plasma pyrolysis/gasification systems have unique features such as the extremely high reaction temperature and ultra-fast reaction velocity compared to traditional pyrolysis/gasification systems. Plasma pyrolysis/gasification is therefore acknowledged as a novel pyrolysis/gasification technology with great potential in solid waste disposal. This paper gives a comprehensive review on the development of fundamental researches on plasma pyrolysis/gasification systems including direct current (DC) arc plasma system and radio frequency (RF) plasma system with an emphasis on reactor design such as plasma fixed/moving bed reactor system, plasma entrained-flow bed reactor system and plasma spout-fluid bed reactor system.     

一类煤与天然气互补利用的新型发电系统

提出一种新型发电系统,通过煤和天然气的互补利用来减少能量转化过程的不可逆损失。煤气化炉采用空气和水蒸气做氧化剂,碳转化率约为60%,未转化部分形成半焦,半焦燃烧释放的热量驱动天然气重整反应,制取合成气。煤部分气化所得气化煤气和半焦燃烧驱动天然气重整所得合成气混合,作为联合循环的燃料。结果显示,新系统的热效率为51.5%,效率为50.3%,天然气折合发电效率为61%。新系统为高效合理利用煤和天然气提供了一种新途径。     

Thermodynamic analysis of gasification of renewable carbonaceous materials of natural and artificial origin in plasma electric furnace

Thermodynamic analysis of plasma gasification of various renewable carbon-bearing materials was carried out using various oxygen-containing oxidants (oxygen, air, water). The possibility of obtaining calorific synthesis gas suitable for the needs of heat power engineering was confirmed.     

Combined cycles with gas turbine engines

Simple cycle gas turbine engines suffer from limited efficiencies and consequential dominance of fuel prices on generation costs. Combined cycles, however, exploit the waste heat from exhaust gases to boost power output, resulting in overall efficiencies around 50%, which are significantly above those of steam power plants. This paper reviews various types of combined cycles, including repowering, integrated gasification and other advanced systems.     

循环床锅炉循环灰对焦油裂解的催化影响

以循环流化床锅炉循环灰为热载体、部分气化产生的半焦为锅炉燃料的煤的蒸汽－煤气联产技术中,降低焦油产率、提高煤气产率是一个努力方向．本文在固定床反应器实验台上以焦油的两种主要组份苯和甲苯为对象,实验研究了一种洗中煤形成的循环友对焦油裂解的催化影响,测定了裂解反应动力学参数,探讨了循环灰对焦油裂解的催化机理．实验结果表明,与热裂解相比,循环灰条件下焦油裂解活化能下降,气态裂解产物总量提高．     

Two-stage thermochemical conversion of solid fuel in a setup with steam ejection

The paper presents a set of tests with a setup using steam supply into ejector instead of compressed air. Experi-ments measured the gas analysis data — volumetric concentrations O₂, CO, CO₂, C _n H _m , NO _x , H₂ at different propor-tions of air and steam. The data are compared with calculations for thermodynamic equilibrium compositions for the reacting mixture С+Н₂О+air performed by “Terra” computer code including the case of air excess (α ≤ 1). The cal-culations were also compared with available data on gasification output at a high content of ballasting gas. It was demonstrated that in these operation modes, the steam was an inert dilution agent, which did not exclude the outcome of coal gas production with high Н₂/СО and СО/СО₂ ratios corresponding to different modes of gasification.     

Gasification of carbon-bearing raw materials in plasma-arc electric furnace with heater and risk of explosion in syngas mixtures

Saw dust was gasified at combined and separated impact of the heater and arc discharge on the raw material. It is shown that because of combustion of a part of produced syngas in the heater the raw material can be gasified with power inputs reduced by 20–25 % in comparison with plasma gasification. Data on parameters of combustion and detonation of syngas mixtures with oxygen and air at a change in the ratio between fuel components CO and H₂ and between fuel and oxidizer are shown for the first time.     

循环流化床热电气三联产装置研究

循环流化床热电气三联产装置研究岑可法，方梦祥，骆仲泱，李绚天，陈飞，王勤辉，陈冠益，倪明江（浙江大学热能工程研究所杭州３１００２７）关键词循环流化床，气化，煤气蒸汽联产１前言在近几年来，我国能源仍主要以煤炭为主，而目前煤炭的绝大部分作为燃料直接燃用，...     

Supercritical water oxidation (SCWO): a process for the treatment of industrial waste effluents

Abstract

SuperCtical Water Oxidation (SCWO) process is investigated at the Institut of Technical Chemistry, ITC-CPV. The objectives were to determine destruction efficiencies of model compounds and industrial waste effluents and to study the feasability of the SCWO process.

Two continuous SCWO bench scale plants are operated a pipe reactor and a transpiring wall reactor system (design data: T= 630°C, P = 32MPa, feed rate waste water =10 and 50kg/h, air feed rate = 20kglh, transpiring and quench water feed rate = 50 kg/h). Suspensions containing up to 5%wt solid material can be fed to the reactor using a membrane pump.

With the pipe reactor, efficiencies of up to 99.99% were achieved for the oxidation of model compounds (ethanol, toluene, phenol) as well as real waste effluents (paper, chemical, pharmaceutical industry, sewage works). The use of the pipe reactor is limited to feeds without salt to avoid plugging.

Salty feeds are processed using the transpiring wall reactor, which is consisting of a pressure bearing tube outside and a porous tube as reactor inside. Water is steadily running through the porous reactor preventing the formation of deposits on the wall.

SCWO has a high potential at least for the destruction of halogented organic compounds using the transpiring wall reactor system and is seen to be competitive to other processes for waste destruction.     

Waste heat recovery of dura (Iraq) oil refinery and alternative cogeneration energy plant

The first part of this paper presents a waste heat recovery scheme for the Dura (Baghdad, Iraq) oil refinery energy plant. Both the wasted heat of the process return condensate and the flue gases are utilized for low temperature feedwater and fuel heating. The steam saved, both from the main steam line and turbine extraction system, was found to increase the steam and plant overall efficiency by 18%.An alternative cogeneration energy plant is presented in the second part of this study. The proposed plant utilizes the gas turbine exhaust, in conjunction with a heat recovery boiler, to produce the process steam requirement. With this alternative plant, the overall efficiency increases by 31.6%, while the steam efficiency increases by 19%. The outstanding features and advantages of the proposed plants are highlighted.     

400MW级IGCC机组变工况性能计算

1引言一个多世纪以来,煤一直是世界上主要的发电燃料,这一趋势将在较长的时间内一直保持下去。对于中国这样一个以煤作为一次能源的国家,这一现象尤为突出。特别是随着全球性能源危机的出现以及环境保护要求的提高,使得洁净煤技术（CCT）受到普遍关注。在众多的洁净煤发电技术中,IGCC技术以其特有的高效率、低污染等特点,被认为是下世纪最有发展前途的洁净煤发电技术之一。鉴于IGCC系统结构与组态非常复杂,涉及煤的气化、净化、燃气轮机、余热锅炉、蒸汽轮机、空气分离等关键技术,因此建立IGCC系统的性能模型,对IGCC机组的…     

The investigation of neutralization process of gas-phase sewage sludge using thermal plasma method

The purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of plasma flow on the composition of gaseous phase organic waste. The experimental method and simulation program “Chemical Workbench” were used for this research. The gas phase waste was neutralized using air plasma in the temperature range of 1200–1700 K. The reactor simulation results showed that the amount of atomic oxygen and nitrogen decreases by 0.5%, meanwhile the amount of carbon monoxide increases by 0.5 percent, as the plasma forming gas is air. The investigation of percentage concentration results showed that as the temperature reaches 1700 K, the H₂ decreases by 4%, CO increases by 7%, CH₄ decreases by 0.4%, CO increases by 0.5%, N₂ decreases by 5%. The experimental measurement results of percentage concentration correlates sufficiently with simulation results for listed gas.     

基于三种气化炉的整体煤气化湿化燃气轮机循环热力性能分析

将燃料湿化和空气湿化应用到整体煤气化燃气轮机循环中,以降低NOx排放并有效利用系统低品位热。基于水煤浆、干煤粉及输运床三种气化炉,构建了多种整体煤气化湿化燃气轮机循环,分析了其热力性能并给出了湿化方式建议。研究表明：燃料湿化循环系统效率较高;空气湿化循环燃气轮机比功较大;整体煤气化湿化燃气轮机循环具有利用系统外部中低品...     

In-situ gasification chemical looping combustion of plastic waste in a semi-continuously operated fluidized bed reactor

Conventional air incineration of plastic waste has been considered as one of important sources of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) through de novo synthesis and precursor conversion. Chemical looping combustion (CLC) is an attractive technology for the conversion of plastic wastes to energy with the potential to drastically suppress the formation of PCDD/Fs. In this paper, the iG-CLC (in-situ gasification CLC) experiments of plastic waste were implemented in a semi-continuously operated fluidized bed reactor, which actually simulates the fuel reactor of a continuously-operated interconnected fluidized bed reactor. A kind of low-cost material, natural iron ore without/with 5 wt% CaO adsorbent through the ultrasonic impregnation method, was used as oxygen carrier (OC). Firstly, some key performances of the reactor system, such as the relevance of the bed inventory to the flow rate of fluidizing agent as well as the relationship between the feeding rate and overflow rate of OC, were calibrated. Then, 90 min of single experiment was conducted for each experimental case and an accumulative operation of more than 10 h was attained. Typically, the combustion efficiency can reach at about 98%, and both the carbon conversion and CO₂ yield can approach to 95% at 900 °C and input thermal power of 150 W with a mixture of 5 vol% H₂O and 95 vol% N₂ as the fluidizing agent (U_FR/U_mf = 3). Moreover, the results obtained in the semi-continuously operated fluidized bed reactor demonstrated that CaO decoration to iron ore is conductive to suppressing the formation of chlorobenzene (as a toxic matter and precursor/intermediate of PCDD/Fs) and does not obviously deteriorate the OC performance.     

Gas turbine exhaust gas heat recovery at South Baghdad (Iraq) power plant

Gas turbine exhaust is usually relatively clean, especially the exhaust from natural gas turbines. The use of such gases to improve the overall thermal efficiency of a steam power plant has the advantage of reducing the cost of cleaning the equipment and reducing the maintenance costs of the heat recovery equipment used in the application.In this paper, two proposals for recovering the waste energy of the exhaust gases from a gas turbine unit, fuelled by natural gas at south Baghdad Power Plant (Iraq) are discussed. The proposals cover improvements to the thermal efficiency of a steam power plant installed near the gas turbine unit. The first proposal is to use the exhaust gases to preheat the feed water at four feed water heaters, in order to increase the power output. This arises because of the savings in the amount of steam extracted at a different level used for preheating the feed water line. The second proposal is to use the thermal energy in the exhaust gases to reheat the extracted stream, at five points at a high thermal potential, to increase the thermal gain at the preheating feed water line. This avoids the complexity associated with rejection of the extracted steam. The first roposal shows that a 1.22–14.9% saving in fuel consumption is achievable and the overall thermal efficiency of the steam power plant becomes 29–34% (at different gas turbine plant loads). The second proposal shows that a 2.3–7.35% saving in fuel consumption can be attained and the corresponding thermal efficiency will be 30.3–32%.     

Sequential hydrothermal gasification of biomass to hydrogen

A new technology, in which a renewable biomass is used to produce hydrogen fuel, is described. This hydrogen can be used as a feed for fuel cells to generate electricity or in other energy-producing processes. Degradation and gasification of cellulose-based biomass in compressed water was studied in the 100–400 °C temperature range. Phase behavior of the cellulose in subcritical water was studied in a diamond-anvil cell, coupled with optical microscopy, at heating rates of 1 and 5 °C/s. Homogeneous conditions of a single water-cellulose phase were established. Complete dissolution of the cellulose was achieved at 333 °C. The evolution mechanism based on a rapid hydrolysis of the cellulose to oligomers and glucose is suggested. Glucose was then used as a model compound to characterize the chemistry of biomass gasification. A 0.1-M glucose solution was fed into a continuous-flow reactor at a pressure of 100 bar using an HPLC pump. Catalytic effects of Pt/Al₂O₃ on the gasification temperature were determined. Gas product composition was analyzed using online GC-TCD. A mixture of H₂, CO₂, and CH₄ gas was produced. Quantitative analysis of the total organic carbon in the liquid residue indicated 67% carbon gasification efficiency at 330 °C. Qualitative analyses of liquid residues showed that the main decomposition products in the liquid phase were alcohols and carboxylic acids. It was shown that the hydrogen fuel could be efficiently generated from biomass.     

Development and Analysis of the Novel Hybridization of a Single-Flash Geothermal Power Plant with Biomass Driven sCO2-Steam Rankine Combined Cycle

This study investigates the hybridization scenario of a single-flash geothermal power plant with a biomass-driven sCO₂-steam Rankine combined cycle, where a solid local biomass source, olive residue, is used as a fuel. The hybrid power plant is modeled using the simulation software EBSILON^®Professional. A topping sCO₂ cycle is chosen due to its potential for flexible electricity generation. A synergy between the topping sCO₂ and bottoming steam Rankine cycles is achieved by a good temperature match between the coupling heat exchanger, where the waste heat from the topping cycle is utilized in the bottoming cycle. The high-temperature heat addition problem, common in sCO₂ cycles, is also eliminated by utilizing the heat in the flue gas in the bottoming cycle. Combined cycle thermal efficiency and a biomass-to-electricity conversion efficiency of 24.9% and 22.4% are achieved, respectively. The corresponding fuel consumption of the hybridized plant is found to be 2.2 kg/s.     

Gaseous Fuel Reactor Research

Gaseous Fuel Nuclear Reactors are externally moderated and contain the fissile material inside a cavity where it is suspended by fluid mechanics forces. The gaseous phase of the nuclear fuel permits operation of the reactor at temperatures much higher than the melting point of all materials. NASA has originally supported relevant research for space propulsion. The continuation of this work includes now research on power generation on Earth for improved economy and environmental acceptability. In reactor experiments with enriched uranium hexafluoride, UF6, a critical mass of 6 kg is determined. Pressurized UF6 remains chemically stable at temperatures up to 2000 kelvins. The interaction of fission fragments with their gaseous environment causes preferential excitation and ionization, leading to non-equilibrium optical radiation. Powerful fluxes of photons are expected to become a superior mechanism of energy extraction from the fissioning gas or plasma in the reactor. The pumping of lasers solely by fission fragments is realized in a variety of lasants. A near term objective of the NASA gaseous fuel reactor program is a benchmark experiment at 100 kw power and at a gas temperature of 1600 kelvins, demonstrating the feasibility of major advances in reactor technology. A concerted research effort is leading to this experiment. A plasma core cavity reactor for high specific impulse propulsion in space reminas a long range goal.     

高温空气低燃气浓度燃烧过程的数值模拟研究

从工程实际出发,本文提出了高温空气低燃气浓度燃烧新技术,即充分利用烟气余热提高助燃空气温度,提高热能利用率;同时通过优化喷口结构,提高燃气射流速度,使燃气射流在同空气射流混合燃烧前卷吸大量炉内烟气,从而降低燃气射流中的可燃物浓度,进而降低氮氧化物的排放。通过数值模拟研究表明,通过燃气射流速度从24.56m/s提高到55.26m/s,可以降低NOx的排放;当围绕燃气喷口的六个圆形空气喷口改为两个矩形喷口时,燃气射流可从两侧卷吸更多的炉内烟气,形成低燃气浓度燃烧,从而大大降低了NOx的排放。