Pre-combustion CO2 capture by MDEA process in IGCC based on air-blown gasification

This work aims at assessing the performance of IGCC power plants with CO2 capture based on air-blown gasification, which is a field scarcely assessed in the open literature. The whole process is modelled and simulated, from coal gasification to syngas cooling and cleaning, to the syngas utilization in the power island. Particular attention is paid to the capture section, based on a two-stage H2S-CO2 selective separation using MDEA as solvent, which was accurately modelled with a rate based approach. The final results show competitive performance of the assessed plants in terms of efficiency and specific emissions with respect to more conventional IGCC systems based on oxygen-blown gasification. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.