11th European Conference on Coal Research and its Application

(ECCRIA 11)

THERMODYNAMIC PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF

SUPERCRITICAL CO2 CLOSED BRAYTON CYCLES
FOR COAL-FIRED POWER GENERATION WITH POST-
COMBUSTION CARBON CAPTURE

Olumide Olumayegun, Meihong Wang, Eni Oko

Process and Energy Systems Engineering Group
University of Hull
Outline
Background & Motivation

Contributions of Study

Process Configurations and Description

Steady State Modelling in Aspen Plus

Results and Discussions

Conclusions

Acknowledgement

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Background & Motivation
 Coal-fired power plants are still playing significant role in
meeting world energy demands
 However, electricity generation from coal-fired power
plants constitute the largest source of CO2 emissions
 In the UK, emissions from electricity generation account
for around a quarter of the UK total

Data Source: DECC, 2015

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Background & Motivation
Coal-fired Power Generation with Post-combustion CO2 Capture
39%efficiency
42% efficiency
Steam
S-CO2 Closed
Power
Brayton Cycle
Plant

Coal Coal+Air CO2

Fuel Combustion Capture

Efficiency CO2 capture

improvement
Possible
replacement of
steam cycle with
s-CO2 cycle Options for CO2 emission
reduction from power plant

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Background & Motivation
Supercritical CO2 Closed Brayton Cycle Power Plant
 Supercritical steam cycles represent the state-of-the-art in coal-
fired power generation
 Supercritical steam power plant increases efficiency based on an
increase in main steam conditions (supercritical pressure & high
TIT)
 However, achievable efficiency improvement is limited by material
technology
 S-CO2 cycle is promising for further efficiency improvement at
current conditions of pressure and temperature
 Other advantages: Simpler than steam cycle, smaller footprint,
applicable to other energy sources (nuclear, solar, geothermal,
waste heat)

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Contributions of Study
S-CO2 cycle for coal, biomass and bottoming cycle applications in
literature
 Manente and Lazzaretto (2014): S-CO2 Brayton cycles comprising topping (recompression
cycle) and bottoming (simple cycle) cycles for small to medium biomass plant as
alternative to reciprocating IC or organic Rankine cycle engines
◦ Efficiency 10%-point higher than existing biomass power plant
 Le Moullec (2013): Conceptual study and design of coal-fired power plant built around a
S-CO2 power cycle and 90% post-combustion CO2 capture
◦ Double reheat (3 turbines), 3 recuperators
◦ Improve heat energy utilisation by cold CO2 bleeding from two locations and 2 stages of
combustion air preheating
◦ 15% reduction in levelised cost of electricity and 45% reduction in cost of avoided CO2
 Mecheri and Le Moullec (2016): Investigates coal-fired S-CO2 cycle from thermodynamic
consideration by comparing effects of number of reheat, number of recompression and
advanced flue gas economiser configurations
◦ Improve heat energy utilisation by transferring flue gas heat to a fraction of cold CO2 and
preheating secondary air until 510 0C
◦ The plant net efficiency is higher than supercritical and ultra-supercritical steam plant by 5.3%-point
and 2.4%-point respectively
 Kim et al. (2016): Compared thermodynamic performance of nine S-CO2 Brayton cycle
layouts as bottoming cycles to a topping cycle of landfill gas fired gas turbine plant
◦ Concluded that recompression cycle not suitable for bottoming cycle application

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Contributions of Study
In this study….
 Adapts S-CO2 cycles for efficient heat utilisation of
pulverised coal-fired furnace by using a topping and
bottoming S-CO2 cycles, which were never explored before
in the literature for coal-fired power plant
 Investigates alternative S-CO2 cycle layouts as bottoming
cycle to main S-CO2 cycle
 New concept of S-CO2 cycle layout for residual heat energy
utilisation
 Integration of post-combustion CO2 capture with coal-fired
S-CO2 cycle power plant

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 Process Configurations and
Description
Simple recuperator closed Brayton cycle
 S-CO2 cycles take advantage of
increased density around
critical region by operating the
compressor inlet close to the
critical point
 The baseline closed Brayton
cycle is the simple regenerative
closed Brayton cycle
 Rapidly varying fluid properties
around the critical point leads
to mismatch of heat capacity in
the recuperator (pinch point
problem)
 Hence it is difficult to achieve
high efficiency in simple s-CO2
Brayton cycle
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 Process Configurations and
Description
Recompression S-CO2 cycle layout

 In the recompression cycle,

the problem of heat capacity
mismatch is resolved by
splitting the flow into two
streams
 Of all the layouts,
recompression layout gives
the highest efficiency with a
relatively simple configuration

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 Process Configurations and
Description
Partial heating cycle layout
 Matching of the heat capacities
achieved by splitting the flow at
the compressor outlet
 A component count of different
layouts showed that only the
simple cycle and the partial
heating cycle layout are simpler
than the recompression cycle
layout
 Hence, this cycle consider only
the simple cycle, the
recompression cycle, partial
heating and a new concept of S-
CO2 cycle layout

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 Process Configurations and
Description
New concept – Single recuperator recompression cycle layout
 Similar to the recompression
layout except that the HTR
was eliminated leaving only
one recuperator
 Flow is split into two streams
just like the recompression
cycle to balance the heat
capacities between the
recuperator hot stream and
cold stream

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 Process Configurations and
Description
Integration of single reheat recompression cycle with coal-fired furnace

T2 T12 T13
T4
T14
PREC
T11
Hot flue A G HP LP RC MC
gases
CHT CRHT
T5 T17 T10
ECORHT
T3 HTR LTR T9 PCC
T18 Reboiler
ECOHT T16 T15
RADRHT T1 T7
T6 T8

Hot flue
gases
B
RADHT
Coal
Air  Recompression S-CO2 cycle adopted due to its superior performance
when compared to other layouts
 The performance is further improved with a single stage of reheat
 Due to high level of recuperation, the flue gas leaves the furnace at
relatively high temperature (about 500 C)

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 Process Configurations and
Description
Utilisation of flue gas residual heat
 A major drawback of coupling closed Brayton cycle to coal-fired furnace is
the significant loss of heat through the hot flue gas leaving the furnace
 If this exiting flue gas is not utilised, it will represent the main cause of
inefficiency in the power plant
 Several options exist for utilising waste heat of flue gases from combustion
processes:
◦ Combined heat and power systems – some early operated coal-fired closed Brayton cycle were
used to generate electricity and produce heat for industrial heating (Oberhausen and Kashira
plant)
◦ Preheating part or all of the working fluid prior to main heat addition in the furnace
◦ Bottoming cycle – Echogen (USA) in the process of commercialising S-CO2 cycle as bottoming
cycle utilising waste heat
◦ Preheating the incoming combustion air – common practice in conventional coal-fired plants

Adopted in this
study
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 Process Configurations and
Description
Overall plant configurations (Case A – Simple cycle bottoming)

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 Process Configurations and
Description
Overall plant configurations (Case B – Partial heating cycle
bottoming)

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 Process Configurations and
Description
Overall plant configurations (Case C – New concept-Single
recuperator recompression cycle bottoming)

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 Steady State Modelling in Aspen Plus

 A model of the three cases of coal-fired S-CO2 cycle power plant with PCC was developed in Aspen
Plus for comparison among the cases as well as with a benchmark coal-fired supercritical steam
power plant
 The plant systems/components modelled include coal mill, fans, preheaters, pulverised coal-fired
furnace, ash removal components, flue gas desulfurization, s-CO2 cycles and PCC unit

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Steady State Modelling in Aspen Plus
Summary of assumptions and design point parameters
Parameter/variable Value
Coal feed (0C/bar/kg/s) 15/1.01/51.82
Air (0C/bar) 15/1.01
Excess air (%) 20
Maximum cycle pressure (bar) 290
HP & LP turbines inlet temperature (0C) 593
Compressor inlet pressure (bar) 76
Compressor inlet temperature (0C) 31
Gas-CO2 TTD (0C) 30
Preheater hot outlet temperature (0C) 116
Recuperator TTD (0C) 10
Turbine isentropic efficiency (%) 93
Main compressor isentropic efficiency (%) 90
Recompression compressor isentropic efficiency (%) 89
Fan isentropic efficiency (%) 80
Generator efficiency (%) 98.4
Ash distribution, fly/bottom ash (%) 80/20

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Results and Discussions
Stream tables
Case A Case B Case C
Stream P (bar) 0
T ( C) m (kg/s) P (bar) 0
T ( C) m (kg/s) P (bar) T (0C) m (kg/s)
Coal 1.01 15 51.82 1.01 15 51.82 1.01 15 51.82
Air 1.01 15 540.88 1.01 15 540.88 1.01 15 540.88
Pry air 1.1 215 127.11 1.1 215 127.11 1.1 215 127.11
Sec. air 1.1 164.45 413.77 1.1 152.40 413.77 1.1 246.23 413.77
Pulv. Coal + air 1.09 75.28 178.92 1.09 75.28 178.92 1.09 75.28 178.92
A 1.01 1010 592.7 1.01 1010 592.7 1.01 1010 592.7
B 1.01 495.25 592.7 1.01 495.25 592.7 1.01 495.25 592.7
C 1.01 252.54 592.7 1.01 244.55 592.7 1.01 306.70 592.7
D 1.01 116 592.7 1.01 116 592.7 1.01 116 592.7
E 0.98 116 587.68 0.98 116 587.68 0.98 116 587.68
F 1.05 123.94 587.68 1.05 123.94 587.68 1.05 123.94 587.68
Flue to PCC 1.01 56.67 587.68 1.01 56.67 587.68 1.01 56.67 587.68
T1 287.11 465.76 4028.23 287.11 465.76 4024.32 287.11 465.76 4148.37
T2 282.82 593 4028.23 282.82 593 4024.32 282.82 593 4148.37
T3 147.72 507.64 4028.23 147.72 507.64 4024.32 147.72 593 4148.37
T4 145.51 593 4028.23 145.51 593 4024.32 145.51 593 4148.37
a1,b1,c1 288.55 222.54 510.86 288.70 305.80 528.51 288.55 276.70 523.37
a2,b2,c2 287.25 466.00 510.86 287.25 466 528.51 287.25 466.00 523.37
b8 290.00 69.79 152.86

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Results and Discussions
Summary of plants performance
Parameters Case A Case B Case C
No With No With No With
PCC PCC PCC PCC PCC PCC
HHV, MJ/kg 27.05 27.05 27.05 27.05 27.05 27.05
Input heat value, MJ 1401.87 1401.87 1401.87 1401.87 1401.87 1401.87
Heat transferred to cycle 1073.48 1073.00 1068.50 1068.21 1101.98 1101.95
(topping/bottoming), MW / 161.25 /161.73 /167.12 /167.40 /126.68 /126.73
Furnace efficiency, % 88.08 88.08 88.14 88.14 87.64 87.64
Preheater duty, MW 87.59 87.61 82.06 82.15 122.50 122.38
Gross electric power 542.80/ 430.19/ 541.14/ 427.77/ 558.09/ 444.85/
(topping/bottoming), MWe 60.16 60.17 62.05 61.96 52.64 52.69
Cycle efficiency (topping/ 50.56/ 40.09/ 50.64/ 40.05/ 50.64/ 40.37/
bottoming), % 37.31 37.20 37.13 37.02 41.55 41.58
Overall cycle efficiency, % 48.83 39.71 48.82 39.63 49.71 40.49
Auxiliaries power, MW 10.49 19.49 10.49 19.49 10.49 19.49
Net electric power, MWe 592.48 470.87 592.71 470.25 600.24 478.05
Overall plant net 42.26 33.59 42.28 33.54 42.82 34.10
efficiency, %

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Results and Discussions
Distribution of the input heat value

 About half of the heat input transferred as

radiant heat in the furnace
 Total loss of heat is about 12% i.e. furnace
efficiency about 88%
 Hence, the addition of bottoming cycle
enables efficient utilisation of furnace heat
 About 12% of the input heat value was
recovered in the bottoming cycle heater

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Results and Discussions

• At the same preheated air

level, partial heating has the
Single reheat Efficiencies of the S-CO2 highest efficiency
supercritical steam
turbine power plant, cycle power plants are • The new concept permits
24.1MPa/593 0C/593 0C about 3% point higher than higher air preheating level,
the benchmark steam and better performance at
power plant the high preheating level

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Conclusions
 A concept of coal-fired power plant using S-CO2 closed
Brayton cycles as power conversion systems and integrated
with 90% post-combustion CO2 capture has been evaluated
 The S-CO2 cycles were adapted for efficient utilization of
furnace heat by addition of bottoming cycle and air
preheating
 The thermodynamic performance evaluation highlights the
promising potential of S-CO2 cycle for coal-fired power plant
application (about 3% efficiency point higher than
conventional steam power plant)
 Case C (the newly developed layout as bottoming cycle)
allows the highest level of air preheating, thereby improving
the plant net efficiency
 There is need to consolidate these results by validating the
performance of the coal-fired S-CO2 cycle power plant

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References
 Kim, M.S., Ahn,Y., Kim, B. and Lee, J.I. (2016), 'Study on the
supercritical CO2 power cycles for landfill gas firing gas
turbine bottoming cycle', Energy, vol. 111, p. 893-909. DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2016.06.014
 Le Moullec, Y. (2013), 'Conceptual study of a high efficiency
coal-fired power plant with CO2 capture using a
supercritical CO2 Brayton cycle', Energy, vol. 49, no. 0, p. 32-
46. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2012.10.022
 Manente, G. and Lazzaretto, A. (2014), 'Innovative biomass to
power conversion systems based on cascaded supercritical
CO2 Brayton cycles', Biomass and Bioenergy, vol. 69, no. 0, p.
155-168. DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2014.07.016.
 Mecheri, M. and Le Moullec, Y. (2016), 'Supercritical CO2
Brayton cycles for coal-fired power plants', Energy, vol. 103, p.
758-771. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2016.02.111

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Acknowledgements

EU FP7 Marie Curie (R-D-CSPP-PSE PIRSES-

GA-2013-612230)

School of Energy & Environment

Southeast University, China

GE Power

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Questions

26
THANK YOU!