Performance of a Dual Fluidized Bed Reactor for Chemical Looping Combustion with Oxygen Uncoupling
Chemical looping with oxygen uncoupling (CLOU) is a variant of chemical looping combustion which uses as fluidized bed particles specific solid oxygen carriers which readily liberate gaseous oxygen (O2) in the fuel reactor. This enables much more efficient combustion of solid fuels such as coal than conventional chemical looping combustion, which relies on in situ gasification of char in to produce syngas that can react heterogeneously with the solid oxygen carrier. The CLOU process for coal is an especially interesting application of fluidized bed technology since several types of reactions take place within the reactors. For copper-based oxygen carrier particles, the copper cycles between cuprous and cupric oxide (Cu2O + ½ O2 ↔ 2 CuO). Volatiles released from coal during pyrolysis may react with oxidized copper or with released oxygen gas. Char reacts primarily with released oxygen. Balancing oxygen supply to the fuel reactor, heat generation and temperatures and global and internal circulation rates is a challenge. The University of Utah has been researching CLOU technology for 10 years, studying fundamental reaction kinetics for copper-based CLOU oxygen carriers, performing lab- and bench-scale experiments in single and dual fluidized beds, and developing reactor models through computational fluid dynamic modeling using Barracuda VR™. Recently the university began testing a 200 kWth dual circulating fluidized bed process development unit (PDU) for processing coal. The design process for that reactor, reactor simulations, operational experience and practical challenges of the PDU system are presented.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FE0025076
- OSTI ID:
- 1593275
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-U_Utah-0025067-13
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 12th International Conference on Fluidized Bed Technology, 23-26 May 2017 Krakow, Poland
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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