화학공학소재연구정보센터
Energy & Fuels, Vol.27, No.8, 4278-4289, 2013
Steam-Coal Gasification Using CaO and KOH for in Situ Carbon and Sulfur Capture
We present experimental results of coal gasification with and without the addition of calcium oxide and potassium hydroxide as dual-functioning catalyst capture agents. using different coal types and temperatures 700 and 900 degrees C, we studied the effect of these catalyst-capture agents on (1) the syngas composition, (2) CO2 and H2S capture, and (3) the stem-coal gasification kinetic rate. The syngas composition from the gasifier was roughly 20% methane, 70% hydrogen, and 10% other species when a CaO/C molar ratio of 0.5 was added. We demonstrated significantly enhanced steam-coal gasification kinetic rate when adding small amounts of potassium hydroxide to coal when operating a CaO-CaCO3 chemical looping gasification reactor. For example, the steam-coal, gasification kinetic rate increased 250% when dry mixing calcium oxide at a Ca/C molar ratio of 0.5 with a sub-bituminous coal, and the kinetic rate increased 1000% when aqueously mixing calcium oxide at a Ca/C molar ratio of 0.5 along with potassium-hydroxide at a K/C molar, ratio of 0.06. In addition, we conducted multi-cycle studies in which CaCO3 was calcined by heating to 900 degrees C regenerate the CaO, which was then reused repeated CaO-CaCO3 cycles. The increased steam-coal gasification kinetics rates for both CaO and CaO + KOH persisted even when the material was reused in six cycles of gasification and calcination. The ability of CaO to capture carbon dioxide decreased roughly 2-4% per CaO-CaCO3 cycle. We also discuss an important application of this combined gasifier-calciner to electricity generation and selling the purge stream as a precalcined feedstock to a cement kiln. In this scenario, the amount of purge stream required is fixed not by the degradation in the capture ability but rather by the requirements cement at the cement kiln on the amount of CaSO4 and ash in the precalcined feedstock.