Presently, the costs associated with the capture of carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants using first-generation oxyfuel combustion technology are prohibitively high. The U.S. Department of Energy has set a goal of developing technologies that can lead to 90% capture of carbon dioxide, with an increased cost of electricity of no more than 35%, as compared to a similar plant without carbon capture. In this project, we aim to demonstrate the technical feasibility of a unique fuel-staged oxy-combustion approach that is capable of meeting DOE goals. By staging the fuel injection and transferring some of the heat between stages, the temperature and heat transfer can be controlled. This allows for the elimination of other temperature control processes, such as flue gas recycle or water/steam injection. The potential benefits which result in increased plant efficiency are: reduced process gas volume, increased radiative heat transfer, reduced oxygen demands, increased CO2 purity entering the carbon compression and purification unit (CPU), and reduced auxiliary power demands. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling will be utilized to evaluate and optimize the staged combustion process, and for design of experiments. Experiments will be conducted at the lab scale, and at the pilot scale in the ACERF test facility. These experiments will focus of the first and second stages of the process, which involves the combustion of fuel in high concentrations of oxygen, with high stoichiometric ratio.
