CARBON CAPTURE & SEQUESTRATION
(Funding source and collaborators:
EPSRC, Doosan Babcock, Eon, DH, TSB, BOC, RWE
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Maryam Gharebaghi pmmgh@leeds.ac.uk Tel: + 44 113 343 3824 Project title: CFD Modelling of Oxy Fuel Combustion
Sponsor: Dorothy Hodgkin Postgraduate Awards (EPSRC/E-on) Project summary: Sequestration as the process of capture and storage of carbon dioxide is an alternative process for limiting the greenhouse effect, to which coal fired power plants contribute. If coal combustion is performed using oxygen instead of air, the product will be rich in carbon dioxide and therefore ready for sequestration. This is known as Oxy fuel combustion. Oxy fuel combustion can be applied to conventional coal combustion plants with some modifications, however some technical challenges have to be addressed and it is still at demonstration phase in full industrial scale. One of the techniques to visualise parametric effects in boilers is computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling. CFD is widely applied as an industrial plant development tool and has been proven to be capable of predicting good trend answers both quantitatively and qualitatively. The purpose of this project is to examine the pilot scale coal combustion furnace for carbon dioxide sequestration in Ratcliff power plant, by employing a commercial CFD code. The experimental case consists of a 1MW coal-fired low NOx burner attached to a rectangular furnace. To assess the extent of the modifications, there is a requirement for improvement or development in some of the mathematical models such as the Thermal model. This includes heat transfer – dominated by radiation and emissivity of gases –, heterogeneous char/carbon kinetic model which takes care of char combustion, gasification, unburned carbon and devolatilization modelling, fly ash/slagging phenomena and turbulence models. Project start / end date: October 2007 / March 2011 Research area: Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), post combustion, transport, advanced CFD process modelling, coal combustion, advanced power generation systems. |
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Kris Larsen pmkjl@leeds.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0)113 343 2569 Research Interest: CFD Modelling of Biomass / Coal Co-firing Processes Supervisors: Prof Mohamed Pourkashanian, Prof Alan Williams, Dr Ma Lin China, the world’s second largest energy consumer, is attributed with over 40% of the global coal consumption to produce its electricity and yet also creates a 60% surplus in straw for animal feed. Besides releasing its stored CO2, the straw surplus will also produce CH4 if allowed to rot or uncontrolled poisonous emissions if simply burnt. Co-firing of biomass with coal in pulverised fuel power stations may enable a short term and economical method of reducing the fossil-fuel source carbon emissions associated with power generation, particularly if a local source of biomass can be used. Significant challenges are posed by this however, including: production, transportation, storage and processing of the biomass as well as its composition, mixing with coal and effects upon efficiency, flame stability, harmful emissions and furnace maintenance. Despite computer modelling of coal combustion being well established, physical and chemical kinetics of biomass particles require investigation and development. This PhD project supports the computational modelling for an international EPSRC programme, encompassing researchers from the universities of Leeds, Kent and Nottingham in the UK and Zhejiang, Tianjin and Xi’an in China, looking into the characterisation of biomass fuel, continuous measurement of the fuel delivery and furnace conditions and modelling to facilitate and subsequently optimise efficient power generation through co-firing. |
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Rachael Porter pmrp@leeds.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0)113 343 2481 Supervisors: Mohamed Pourkashanian & Alan Williams Research Interest: Performance Prediction Methods for Modern Power Plant Boilers The mitigation of greenhouse gas emission is crucial in order to address the issue of climate change. Oxyfuel firing in coal fired power stations is one proposed technology that will facilitate carbon capture and storage (CCS) and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from coal fired power stations. Oxyfuel is a relatively new technology and so far demonstration projects are underway but no full scale plants are operating. Therefore accurate CFD modelling of the technology is important to aide design of new boilers and increase understanding of the underlying physical and chemical processes. Oxyfuel increases the concentration of CO2 by burning coal with oxygen and using recycled flue gases to quench the temperature. Standard CFD models require improvement to account for changes in the chemistry and heat transfer compared to normal combustion. Heat transfer by radiation is a complex problem to model when coupled with all the interacting process within a furnace. This project focuses on improvements to heat transfer models by modelling more accurately the radiative properties of the medium in oxyfuel combustion and generating better predictions for the heat transfer in CFD. Improvements will also be made to other sub-models relevant to heat transfer. Data from detailed CFD models will be used to develop design models for oxyfuel and provide predictions of full-scale plants. Data from test rigs will be used to validate the models. |
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Penny Edge pmpje@leeds.ac.uk Project Title: CFD Modelling of Oxy-Coal Combustion Supervisor: Mohamed Pourkashanian Sponsor: EPSRC The relative abundance and flexibility of coal guarantee it to be a major part of the global energy mix for the foreseeable future. |
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Sreenivasa Gubba |
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Lin Ma |
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Richard Porter |
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Professor MC Pourkashanian |
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Emeritus Professor Alan Williams, CBE |
