Novel concepts for the compression of large volumes of carbon dioxide-phase III
- Southwest Research Inst., San Antonio, TX (United States)
In the effort to reduce the release of CO2 greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, sequestration of CO2 from Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) and Oxy-Fuel power plants is being pursued. This approach, however, requires significant compression power to boost the pressure to typical pipeline levels. The penalty can be as high as 8-12% on a typical IGCC plant. The goal of this research is to reduce this penalty through novel compression concepts and integration with existing IGCC processes. The primary objective of the study of novel CO2 compression concepts is to reliably boost the pressure of CO2 to pipeline pressures with the minimal amount of energy required. Fundamental thermodynamics were studied to explore pressure rise in both liquid and gaseous states. For gaseous compression, the project investigated novel methods to compress CO2 while removing the heat of compression internal to the compressor. The highpressure ratio, due to the delivery pressure of the CO2 for enhanced oil recovery, results in significant heat of compression. Since less energy is required to boost the pressure of a cooler gas stream, both upstream and inter-stage cooling is desirable. While isothermal compression has been utilized in some services, it has not been optimized for the IGCC environment. Phase I of this project determined the optimum compressor configuration and developed technology concepts for internal heat removal. Other compression options using liquefied CO2 and cryogenic pumping were explored as well. Preliminary analysis indicated up to a 35% reduction in power is possible with the new concepts being considered. In the Phase II program, two experimental test rigs were developed to investigate the two concepts further. A new pump loop facility was constructed to qualify a cryogenic turbopump for use on liquid CO2 . Also, an internally cooled compressor diaphragm was developed and tested in a closed loop compressor facility using CO2 . Both test programs successfully demonstrated good performance and mechanical behavior. In Phase III, a pilot compression plant consisting of a multi-stage centrifugal compressor with cooled diaphragm technology has been designed, constructed, and tested. Comparative testing of adiabatic and cooled tests at equivalent inlet conditions shows that the cooled diaphragms reduce power consumption by 3-8% when the compressor is operated as a back-to-back unit and by up to 9% when operated as a straight-though compressor with no intercooler. The power savings, heat exchanger effectiveness, and temperature drops for the cooled diaphragm were all slightly higher than predicted values but showed the same trends.
- Research Organization:
- Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- FC26-05NT42650
- OSTI ID:
- 1172980
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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