Flue Gas Cleaning for CO2 Capture from Coal-fired Oxyfuel Combustion Power Generation

Current progress in flue gas cleaning for CO2 capture from oxyfuel combustion has been described based on conceptual development, fundamental understanding and practical tests at the Schwarze Pumpe Oxyfuel Pilot Plant (OxPP). Significant improvement in understanding the characteristics of SOx, NOx, particulate matters (PMs) and non-condensable gas components in flue gas cleaning processes provide a scientific basis for further developments of flue gas cleaning technologies. Testing results from pilot studies have proved that flue gas cleaning systems have reached the achievable performance and have also shown that there is generally no fundamental technical bottleneck for most of the flue gas cleaning technologies. Further developments should focus on comprehensive optimisation of the flue gas cleaning processes combined with boiler and downstream CO2 compression processes. Changes in flue gas cleaning technologies may be excepted if more attractive gas cleaning processes could be successfully developed in the near future; for example, NOx removal and control technologies. The development of a monitoring approach for the mitigation of non-condensable gases is an important operational issue for large-scale oxyfuel combustion plant. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.