Integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plants are a promising technology option for power generation with carbon dioxide (CO2) capture in view of their efficiency and environmental advantages over conventional coal utilization technologies. This paper presents a three-phase, top-down, optimization-based approach for designing an IGCC plant with precombustion CO2 capture in a process simulator environment. In the first design phase, important global design decisions are made on the basis of plant-wide optimization studies with the aim of increasing IGCC thermal efficiency and thereby making better use of coal resources and reducing CO2 emissions. For the design of an IGCC plant with 90% CO2 capture, the optimal combination of the extent of carbon monoxide (CO) conversion in the water−gas shift (WGS) reactors and the extent of CO2 capture in the SELEXOL process, using dimethylether of polyethylene glycol as the solvent, is determined in the first phase. In the second design phase, the impact of local design decisions is explored considering the optimum values of the decision variables from the first phase as additional constraints. Two decisions are made focusing on the SELEXOL and Claus unit. In the third design phase, the operating conditions are optimized considering the optimum values of the decision variables from the first and second phases as additional constraints. The operational flexibility of the plant must be taken into account before taking final design decisions. Two studies on the operational flexibility of the WGS reactors and one study focusing on the operational flexibility of the sour water stripper (SWS) are presented. At the end of the first iteration, after executing all the phases once, the net plant efficiency (HHV basis) increases to 34.1% compared to 32.5% in a previously published study (DOE/NETL-2007/1281; National Energy Technology Laboratory, 2007). The study shows that the three-phase, top-down design approach presented is very useful and effective in a process simulator environment for improving efficiency and flexibility of IGCC power plants with CO2 capture. In addition, the study identifies a number of key design variables that has strong impact on the efficiency of an IGCC plant with CO2 capture.

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