Impact of ceramic membranes for CO2 separation on IGCC power plant performance

The potential of carbon capture from coal gasification power plants by H-2 selective ceramic membranes is investigated. Detailed models of a reference power plant and three different carbon capture concepts were setup with Aspen Plus and Ebsilon. Parameter variations were performed to investigate the influence of membrane characteristics and power plant specific boundary conditions on the performance of the capture concepts. For ceramic membranes with a selectivity of H-2 versus N-2 and CO2 of 500 the results showed that for a sour CO-shift and sweet CO-shift efficiency losses of 9.07 and 9.43 % points are feasible, respectively, while separating about 97 % of the CO2 with a purity of 95 %. A ceramic membrane reactor concept with simultaneous CO2 separation and CO-shift was the third carbon capture concept investigated. This concept achieves separation degrees of 96.6 % and purities above 95 % with an efficiency loss of 6.7 % points. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.