China’s coal-fired power plants impose pressure on water resources

Zhang, Xinxin; Liu, Junguo; Tang, Yu; Zhao, Xu; Yang, Hong; Gerbens-Leenes, P.W.; Vliet, Michelle T. H. van; Yan, Jinyue

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.04.040

Cited by 100 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…With the population growth and rapid economic development, power demand increased year after year [1]. In the case of serious water pollution and gradual water shortage, the contradiction between water demand and water supply shortage in the power production process is deepening [2].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental Study on Water Recovery from Flue Gas Using Macroporous Ceramic Membrane

2020

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In this work, a ceramic membrane tube with a pore size of 1 µm was used to conduct experimental research on moisture and waste heat recovery from flue gas. The length, inner/outer diameter, and porosity were 800 mm, 8/12 mm, and 27.2%, respectively. In the experiments, the flue gas, which was artificially prepared, flowed on the shell side of membrane module. The water coolant passed through the membrane counter-currently with the gas. The effects of flue gas flow rate, flue gas temperature, water coolant flux, and water coolant temperature on the membrane recovery performance were analyzed. The results indicated that, upon increasing the flue gas flow rate and its temperature, both the amount of recycled water and the recovered heat increased. The amount of recycled water, recycled water rate, recovered heat, and heat recovery rate all decreased as the water coolant temperature increased. When the water coolant temperature exceeded 30 • C, the amount of recycled water dropped sharply. The maximum amounts of recycled water, recovered heat, and total heat transfer coefficient were 2.93 kg/(m 2 ·h), 3.63 kW/m 2 , and 224.3 W/(m 2 ·K), respectively.Materials 2020, 13, 804 2 of 18 are required. At present, the production of adsorbent in the adsorption technology requires a large amount of energy; thus, adsorption technology is less economical. Additionally, the treatment of precipitate formed by the contact between the flue gas and the absorbent is technically difficult [9,10]. Usually, the membrane materials used in flue gas moisture recovery are fiber membranes and ceramic membranes. Although the membranes are relatively expensive to manufacture, they take advantages of high efficiency, reliability, and heat and chemical resistance [11,12]. Therefore, membrane separation technology is more promising in the flue gas moisture recovery field.Regarding fiber membranes, Sijbesma et al.[13] comparatively studied two membrane bundles composed of polyether block amide (PEBAX ® 1074) and sulfonated polyether ether ketone (SPEEK) membrane materials for moisture recovery from power plant exhaust. The results revealed that the performance of SPEEK fiber membrane with a sulfonation degree of 60% was better. Under the real flue gas condition, the vapor removal rate of the membrane was 0.2 to 0.46 L/(m 2 ·h). Gao et al. [14] performed an experimental study on a polyether sulfone-sulfonated polyether ether ketone (PES-SPEEK) hollow-fiber membrane applied to recycle water from exhaust gas. The influences on water and waste heat recovery, such as sulfonation degree, coating, filling rate, and length of membrane, were analyzed. The fiber membranes mentioned above are all hydrophilic. For hydrophobic membranes, the Macedonio team constructed a membrane condenser using polyvinylidene fluoride hollow-fiber membranes and carried out simulation calculations [11]. They showed that the water recovery rate could reached 20% when the exhaust temperature drop was less than 5 • C. Brunetti et al. [15] experimentally examined the effect of ∆T (t...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental Study on Water Recovery from Flue Gas Using Macroporous Ceramic Membrane

2020

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“…Maximum time to recovery (MaxT) is defined to describe the duration of the longest electricity undersupply period, when UC t on any day is smaller than P t : 8) where D is the duration (days) of the ith undersupply period T i . The third indicator total power generation loss (TotL) (MWh) during the undersupply periods T is calculated as…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal Risk Assessment of Water–Electricity Nexus Systems under Water Consumption Policy Constraint

Zhang

Cai

et al. 2020

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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Previous studies have estimated power plant cooling water consumption based on the long-term average cooling water consumption intensity (WI: water consumption per unit of electricity generation) at an annual scale. However, the impacts of the seasonality of WI and streamflow on electricity generation are less well understood. In this study, a risk assessment method is developed to explore the seasonal risk of water−electricity nexus based on the Integrated Environmental Control Model, which can simulate variable WIs in response to daily weather conditions and avoid underestimation in WIs as well as nexus risk during dry seasons. Three indicators, reliability, maximum time to recovery, and total power generation loss, are proposed to quantify the seasonal nexus risk under water consumption policy constraint represented by the allowed maximum percentage of water consumption to streamflow. The applications of the method in two representative watersheds demonstrate that the nexus risk is highly seasonal and is greatly impacted by the seasonal variability of streamflow rather than annual average water resources conditions on which most previous studies are based. The nexus is found more risky in the watershed with almost double mean annual streamflow and greater streamflow variability, compared with the watershed with less streamflow variability.

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“…Most of the regions that possess plentiful fossil fuel reserves are facing an increasingly serious water crisis. Around 70% of coal mines and 75% of coal-fired power plants are sitedin water deficient regions in China [4][5][6]. Water resources are severely depleted and polluted in the life cycle processes of fossil energy production, e.g., oil and gas extraction, coal mining and washing, coking, and crude oil refining.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Degradation by China’s Fossil Fuels Production: A Life Cycle Assessment Based on an Input–Output Model

Liang

Chai

et al. 2019

Sustainability

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Fossil energy production not only aggravates water depletion but also severely contaminates water resources. This study employed a mixed-unit input–output model to give a life cycle assessment of national average water degradation in production of common types of fossil fuels in China. The results show that the amount of grey water generated is much more than that of consumptive and withdrawn water in all cases. Although there is a high discharge amount of chemical oxygen demand (COD) in fossil fuel production, the pollutants of petroleum (PE) and volatile phenols (VP) require more dilution water than COD. PE is the greatest contributor to water degradation caused by primary fossil fuels, while VP pollution is prominent in production of upgraded fossil fuels. Basically, the main causes of water degradation, PE and VP discharge, occurs at coal mines, oil fields, refinery plants, and coking factories, rather than in the upstream sectors. A scenario analysis showed that water pollution can be significantly reduced if VP discharge in the coking process is controlled to be at the standard concentration. PE requires a standard withalower discharge concentration in order to further mitigate water pollution in production of fossil fuels. The coal production industry has a much lower pollutant removal rate but spends more on wastewater treatment, up to 12% of its profit. The other fossil fuel industries have high removal rates of PE and VP (97%–99%) and thus demand technological renovation to further remove those pollutants at a low concentration.

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China’s coal-fired power plants impose pressure on water resources

Cited by 100 publications

References 27 publications

Experimental Study on Water Recovery from Flue Gas Using Macroporous Ceramic Membrane

Experimental Study on Water Recovery from Flue Gas Using Macroporous Ceramic Membrane

Seasonal Risk Assessment of Water–Electricity Nexus Systems under Water Consumption Policy Constraint

Water Degradation by China’s Fossil Fuels Production: A Life Cycle Assessment Based on an Input–Output Model

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