A Study on the Efficient Removal of CO₂ from a Coal Gasification Combined Cycle Plant

Abstract

Degradation of the global environment is one of the most crucial issues in the energy field. In particular, the global warming is a serious problem because the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels is a dominant source of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. We need to develop technologies of controling CO₂ emissions to mitigate the global warming. This paper presents a novel system of removing CO₂ efficiently from power stations. We focus the research on the coal gasification combined cycle plant, and propose the system in which CO₂ is removed from the fuel gas utilizing the shift reaction before the gas is burnt to generate electricity. We have computed thermal efficiencies in the following two types of combined cycle plants. One is the plant in which CO₂ is removed from the fuel gas before the gas is burnt. The other is the plant in which CO₂ is removed from the stack gas after the gas is burnt. Computed results show that the efficiency is higher by 2.6 percentage points in the plant of removal before burning than in the plant of removal after burning.