High‐performance oxygen transport membrane reactors integrated with IGCC for carbon capture

Abstract

Precombustion carbon capture is an effective strategy to reduce large‐scale CO2 emissions, which is mainly used in the area of integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants. Oxygen transport membranes (OTMs) were suggested as the air separation unit to produce high purity oxygen for the gasifier. However, the improvement in efficiency was limited. Here, a new IGCC process is reported based on a robust OTM reactor, where the OTM reactor is used behind the coal gasifier. This IGCC‐OTM process fulfills syngas oxidation, H2 production, and carbon capture in one unit, thus a significant decrease of the energy penalty is expectable. The membrane reactor does not use noble metal components, and exhibits high hydrogen production rates, high hydrogen separation factor (103–104), and stable performance in a gas mixture mimicking real syngas compositions from a coal gasifier with H2S concentrations up to 1,000 ppm.

A high‐efficiency novel IGCC‐OTM carbon capture power plant design

“…One such SDC-SSCF OTM has been experimentally demonstrated for stable hydrogen production in high H2S concentration environments. 18 The overall reaction in the OTM reactor is the weakly exothermic WGS reaction (shown in Figure 1). The input feed gas, i.e., water, is preheated to a temperature slightly lower than the operating temperature, keeping the operation of the OTM reactor isothermal.…”

“…16 New membranes for hydrogen production such as the oxygen transport membranes (OTM) are being developed to tolerate H2S and operate at higher temperatures closer to 1300 o C to avoid quenching. 18,19 OTMs work at elevated temperatures of 700 -1600 o C, [20][21][22] and hydrogen production from water splitting in OTMs has previously been investigated. 23,24 Water splitting occurs on the high oxygen partial pressure side of the OTM reactor to produce hydrogen, while the oxygen permeates through the membrane to the other side due to the potential gradient across the membrane.…”

“…24 Recently, our groups developed a robust H2S tolerant OTM reactor for hydrogen separation, which demonstrates the potential of integrating OTMs in an IGCC-CC process. 18 Figure 1 shows the operation of OTM in this process. Coal gasification products are fed on side I and undergo full oxidation with the permeated oxygen from water splitting reaction on side II.…”

“…Experimental results showed that this novel OTM reactor maintained high and stable performances (9 mL cm -2 min -1 (STP) ≈ 6.70 μmol cm -2 s -1 ) under reducing gas environment mimicking the gasification products from a coal-slurry fed General Electric Energy (GEE) gasifier with H2S concentrations as high as 1000 ppm. 18 Meanwhile, efforts from various companies and institutes such as Praxair and the Institut für Keramische Technologien und Systeme (IKTS) Fraunhofer have been carried out to commercialize OTM reactors for various applications, such as oxygen generation and syngas production. 25 OTMs have been proposed to replace the cryogenic ASU, and system analysis showed that the former can decreases the energy consumption for oxygen production, compared with the latter when the heat recovery rate is higher than 92%.…”

Mixed matrix membranes containing polymer‐embedded metal‐organic framework microspheres

“…Various technologies, including absorption and membrane separation, are proposed for CO 2 capture 3‐8 . Membrane technology has been attracting intensive attention because of its high efficiency, simple operation, environmental friendliness, and so forth 7‐11 . Polymeric membranes with high processibility, low‐energy requirement, and relatively cheap production cost are widely applied in CO 2 separation.…”