Applied Thermal Engineering 61 (2013) 115e122

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Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Coal based power plants using oxy-combustion for CO2 capture:

Pressurized coal combustion to reduce capture penalty
Rengarajan Soundararajan*, Truls Gundersen
Department of Energy and Process Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Kolbjoern Hejes vei. 1B, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 14 November 2012
Accepted 2 April 2013
Available online 17 April 2013

The goal of this paper is to design and study a new variation of an oxy-combustion coal based power
plant with CO2 capture. This variation employs a pressurized coal combustor that burns coal in an oxygen
rich environment. The concept is compared with an atmospheric pressure oxy-combustion power plant
(baseline case). Such analyses would provide us with information regarding potential heat integration
and improvement opportunities of oxy-combustion coal based power plants. Also, this study highlights
the efciency improvement potential of the oxy-combustion technology for coal based power plants. The
power cycle presented in this paper is a supercritical cycle that has a gross electric power output of
774 MW for the baseline case and 792 MW for the pressurized case. The auxiliary power consumption is
reduced from 224 MW in the baseline case to 214 MW in the pressurized case due to the absence of air
leakage into the boiler. The recovery of latent heat from the ue gases is increased due to the elevated
dew point in the pressurized case. This results in a net LHV and HHV efciency improvement of 1.7
percentage points each over the baseline case. In both the cases, over 90% of the produced CO2 is
captured and compressed to 110 bar after removal of volatiles and other pollutants such as SOx and NOx.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
CO2 capture
Oxy-combustion
Capture penalty
Pressurized coal combustion
Heat integration

1. Introduction
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a technology that collects
and concentrates the CO2 emitted from large point sources such as
power plants, transports it to a suitable storage location and stores
it away from the atmosphere for a sufciently long time to avoid
warming of the atmosphere. Global energy consumption is projected to rise in the future driven by population growth and other
factors such as the rapid economic expansion of large developing
nations such as China, India and Brazil. Fossil fuels are expected to
be a major part of the future energy mix according to projections by
reputed international organizations [1]. In this context, technology
such as CCS becomes inevitable to avoid atmospheric greenhouse
gas emissions and related climate consequences. CCS is expected to
play a pivotal role in stabilizing the atmospheric greenhouse gas
levels within acceptable limits. It has been estimated that the
average contribution of CCS in total emission reduction would
range from 15% to 54% for stabilization targets of 750 ppmv to
450 ppmv CO2 [2]. The deployment of CCS could help bring down
the overall cost of mitigation of climate change in the longer run [3].
There are three main ways to implement the CCS when it comes to

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 47 4510 6327.

E-mail address: rengarajan.soundararajan@ntnu.no (R. Soundararajan).
1359-4311/$ e see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2013.04.010

the capture part of the CCS chain. One of the three ways to capture
CO2 is referred to as the oxy-combustion method in which the fuel is
burnt in an oxygen rich environment instead of air, thus resulting in
a ue gas that contains mainly water vapour and CO2. The oxygen
required for combustion comes from the atmosphere after the
associated nitrogen is stripped off before the combustor. Part of the
ue gas is recycled back into the combustor to maintain the combustion temperature at acceptable levels. This method is considered to have several advantages such as reduced environmental
impact [4] and competitive cost of electricity [5].
Oxy-combustion requires an upstream production of oxygen for
combustion, which is energy intensive and hence expensive.
Downstream purication of the ue gas using a Compression and
Purication Unit (CPU) is also required to remove the volatile
components such as nitrogen, argon, oxygen, etc., after condensing
the water, to achieve the required purity before compression and
pipeline transport. A cryogenic Air Separation Unit (ASU) is
generally used for large-scale production of oxygen. The ASU and
the CPU are responsible for an efciency penalty of around 10
percentage points [6]. There is a need to reduce this efciency
penalty in order to make oxy-combustion power plants attractive
and ready for commercial deployment. Heat integration techniques
are widely suggested in order to reduce the capture penalty.
Adiabatic compression in the ASU compressors helps to improve
the heat integration [7]. One of the ways to reduce the capture

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R. Soundararajan, T. Gundersen / Applied Thermal Engineering 61 (2013) 115e122

Nomenclature
ASU
BFW
C1eC4
CPU
CRH
DoE
E-1, E-2
EGR
ESP
F1eF4
FGD
HHV
HP-FWH
HRSG
LHV
LP-FWH
NETL
V-1, V-2

air separation unit

boiler feedwater
compressors in the CPU
CO2 compression and purication unit
cold reheat steam
Department of Energy
multi stream heat exchangers
exhaust gas recycle
electrostatic precipitator
ash drums in the CPU
ue gas desulphurization
higher heating value (kJ/kg)
high pressure-feedwater heaters
heat recovery steam generator
lower heating value (kJ/kg)
low pressure-feedwater heaters
National Energy Technology Laboratory
throttle valves

penalty is to go for a pressurized coal combustion system, which

has several advantages over the atmospheric combustion system.
Similar systems have been studied earlier [8] and pressurized coal
combustion shows a reduction in capture penalty [9]. Gazzino et al.
[8], have analysed pressurized oxy-combustion of coal and have
found out that both char combustion and convective heat transfer
is improved when compared to atmospheric pressure oxycombustion. More latent heat is also recovered in the acid
condenser, improving the overall power plant efciency. Their cycle
employs a dual reheat steam cycle. Hong et al. [9], study the inuence of operating pressure which is one of the most important
parameters affecting the performance of pressurized oxycombustion systems. The study varies the combustor operating
pressure from 1.238 bars to 10 bars. Their study shows that the
savings achieved in the recirculation fan compression work and
enhanced heat recovery in the acid condensers make 10 bars the
optimal operating pressure of such systems. However, neither of
the above studies has a base case atmospheric oxy-combustion
power plant that is close to the state of art. A state of the art coal
based power plant would use a single reheat supercritical steam
cycle and a boiler that has a negative gage pressure with radiant
heat transfer. Such a base case conguration would help us locate
and quantify the efciency improvements brought by
pressurization.
In this study, a pressurized oxy-combustion coal based power
plant with CO2 capture is analysed and compared with an atmospheric counterpart (base case). The base case resembles a modern
pulverised coal based power plant tted with oxy-combustion
technology for CO2 capture. The pressurized case employs a
boiler design similar to that of the Gazzino et al. [8], while sharing
the steam cycle, ASU and CPU design with the base case. The
ambient conditions, coal composition and the CO2 pipeline specications are also kept common between two cases. The only difference between the two cases is the boiler heat transfer mode. The
atmospheric system has a radiant heat transfer section whereas the
pressurized system does not. An acid condenser or a plastic heat
exchanger is used in both cases to recover the low grade latent heat
from the ue gases before it enters the CPU for purication, and the
recovered heat is used in the steam cycle for additional power
production [10]. Both cases have similar ue gas purication processes that remove SOx and NOx and then compress the resulting
CO2 to pipeline specications. The methodology used in the study is

described in the following section followed by detailed process

descriptions, simulation parameters, performance results and
conclusions.
2. Methodology
The simulation package Aspen Plus is used to model the steam
cycle, the atmospheric and pressurized boiler islands and the CO2
Purication and Compression Unit. Thermoow STEAM PRO is
used to assist the simulation process by providing the parameters
such as pressure drops and other thermodynamic assumptions for
the boiler and the steam cycle. IAPWS-95 physical properties
method was used to estimate the steam/water parameters in the
steam cycle. Peng Robinson cubic equation of state with the BostoneMathias alpha function was used to simulate the boiler island
while the same equation of state with kij binary interaction parameters was used to model the CPU. The ASU was not modelled,
however, the energy required in producing and compressing the
oxygen was taken into account from similar studies [8].
Initially, a steam cycle is modelled in Aspen Plus assisted by
STEAM PRO which gives the gross power produced and the
thermal energy requirements. The steam cycle also provides the
feedwater conditions and live steam parameters. Using this information, an oxy-combustion boiler can be designed that suits the
steam cycle. A CPU is then designed for the boiler that removes the
volatiles and compresses the ue gas to nal pipeline specications. Based on the above method, the fuel ow is kept constant at
64 kg/s so as to form a common ground for comparison. Other
simulation parameters that have an impact over the results such as
the excess oxygen, combustor exit temperature, steam cycle and
CPU operating parameters are also kept consistent between the two
cases. Various performance parameters such as the gross power
produced, auxiliary power requirements and the net plant efciency are calculated after combining the heat and mass balance
models from Aspen Plus. Finally, the improvements brought by the
pressurization are discussed along with the potential heat integration opportunities for the future. Comparisons of cases are
mainly based on the overall efciency perspective. Changes in
capital investment, operating expenses and environmental impact
are not considered in this study and could be investigated in the
future. Thermodynamic assumptions and simulation parameters,
cycle description and performance results are provided in the
subsequent sections.
3. Process description
In order to maintain a consistency and to have a baseline for
future studies, the simulation parameters are taken from published
reports as explained below. Ambient conditions, fuel composition,
steam cycle and cooling system parameters are obtained from an
EBTF common framework document [11] The feedwater preheating
system, auxiliary power consumption and some of the boiler parameters are obtained from STEAM PRO. Other parameters such as
the boiler pressure and pressure drop for the pressurized case are
taken from Hong et al. [9],. The CPU simulation parameters
including the conguration, ash temperatures, pressures and the
compressor efciency values are provided by Pipitone and Bolland,
2009 [12], and the Equation of State is from Posch and Haider, 2012
[13]. The coal composition is given in Table 1 and Table 2 gives the
ambient air composition. Selected simulation assumptions are
given in Table 3. Fig. 1 shows the overall schematic of the power
plant except the CO2 purication and compression part. The central
element of the boiler island is the combustor, the pressure of which
depends on the case considered. Coal is fed into the combustor
while ash is removed from the combustor in a molten state. The

R. Soundararajan, T. Gundersen / Applied Thermal Engineering 61 (2013) 115e122

Table 1
Coal composition and heating value.

117

Table 3
Selected simulation parameters for the cycle.

Bituminous Douglas premium coal characteristics

Parameter

Value

Proximate analysis wt.%

Steam cycle

Baseline

Pressurized

Main steam pressure

Main steam temperature
Reheat temperature
Condenser pressure
Feedwater heaters
Feedwater
nal temperature
Deaerator pressure

280
600
610
0.048
7
315

280
600
610
0.048
6
315

bar

C

C
bar

18

18

bar

18

15
20
1.0124
3

15
20
10
3

bar

C
bar
% (dry)

N/A
10/5
3
3

1850
95
1.04
71

1550
95
1.06
85.3


C
%
No unit
Mass %

3
1
N/A
8

30/33
54/31
110

30/33
54/31
110

Moisture
Ash
Volatiles
Fixed carbon
Total sulphur

HHV (MJ/kg)
LHV (MJ/kg)

Ultimate analysis wt.%

8.000
14.150
22.950
54.900
0.520

Carbon
Nitrogen
Hydrogen
Total sulphur
Ash
Chlorine
Moisture
Oxygen

66.520
1.560
3.780
0.520
14.150
0.010
8.000
5.460

26.230
25.170

Table 2
Ambient air composition.

Nitrogen
CO2
H2O
Argon
Oxygen
Gas constant (J/(kg K))
Molecular weight

Volume fraction dry

78.09
0.03
0.93
20.95
287.06
28.964

Stream no.
Fig. 1

11
11
12
13
N/A
10

Boiler island

boiler island also has an ash removal and handling system (ESP) to
remove y ash, an induced draft fan to overcome the gas-side
pressure drop, a Heat Recovery Steam Generator (HRSG) and an
acid condenser. An air leakage stream is present only in the atmospheric case due to a negative gage pressure in the combustor/
HRSG. The ASU is shown in the gure as a single block supplying
oxygen to the combustor. Part of the ue gas after the fan is passed
through the acid condenser. Heat from the ue gas is recovered in
the acid condenser and used to preheat the feedwater before the
low pressure-feedwater heaters.
The oxygen stream from the ASU is mixed with recycled ue gas
and fed into the combustor. The oxygen stream is preheated in the
baseline case and compressed in the pressurized case before the
combustor. The hot ue gases from the combustor is then mixed
with more recycled ue gas in order to adjust the temperature to be
suitable for heat transfer and steam production in the HRSG. The
ue gas exiting the HRSG then passes through the ESP for ash
removal. Part of the ue gas forms the recycle feed (Exhaust Gas
Recycle-EGR). The power system is a large supercritical steam cycle
that resembles those in operation at large power plants today.
Steam, after expanding in the steam turbines, is condensed by
cooling water from the cooling towers. The site ambient temperature of 15  C and a relative humidity of 60% determine the
condensation pressure and hence the efciency of the steam cycle.
The condensate is then typically preheated in feedwater heaters
that are supplied with condensing steam from the turbines. The LPFWH and HP-FWH in Fig. 1 represent the low pressure and the high
pressure-feedwater heating trains.
Regenerative preheating of boiler feedwater is essential to
achieve high steam cycle efciency and hence a better overall plant
efciency [14]. In a typical large steam cycle, as many as eight
feedwater heaters are used to preheat the boiler feedwater by
extracting steam from various extraction points in the steam turbines [15]. Also, a deaerator is used to remove gases and other
impurities from the boiler feedwater. When using the acid
condenser, part of this heating is performed by stream no. 7 (Fig. 1)
from the boiler exhaust and hence corresponding steam extraction
can be used in the steam turbines to generate additional power.

Component

Units

Volume fraction at 60% R.H

77.30
0.03
1.01
0.92
20.74
288.16
28.854

Evaporator pressure drop

Boiler minimum design pinch
Boiler operating pressure
Excess oxygen
at combustor outlet
Combustor exit temperature
Oxygen purity
Fan pressure ratio
Recycle ratio
CO2 Purication Unit
Stage 1 temperature/pressure
Stage 2 temperature/pressure
Final product pressure

Fig. 3
C/bar

C/bar
bar

27
31
39

Finally, the ue gas which is now cooled down in the acid

condenser is fed to the CPU for purication and compression to the
pipeline specications. BFW in Fig. 1 represents the feedwater at its
nal preheated temperature before it enters the boiler. CRH is the
cold reheat stream taken from the turbines before it is reheated to
610  C. Two pumps are used in the steam cycle; the condensate
forwarding pump immediately after the condenser and a boiler
feedwater pump after the deaerator. The boiler feedwater pump is
driven by a low pressure condensing turbine that is supplied with
steam at 9.4 bars.
3.1. ASU and the boiler island
The ASU forms the central element of the whole oxycombustion CO2 capture process. It is also responsible for most of
the energy penalty associated with the capture. Oxygen can be
produced in many different ways, but the most commonly
considered way to produce large quantities of oxygen is cryogenic
distillation, which is the assumed technology in this study. As the
ASU is a large and complex system in itself, to limit the complexity
of the study, it is not simulated in detail. Instead, only the power
required to produce the oxygen is taken into account. The specic
energy required to produce an oxygen stream of 95% purity at atmospheric pressure is around 0.23 kWh/kg [8]. Commercial gures
vary widely and also the value used in this report does not reect
the most recent developments made in the eld of air separation
[16]. In the atmospheric case, the oxygen stream is preheated
before the combustor while in the pressurized case; the temperature of the oxygen stream at the inlet of the combustor is controlled
by the choice of compression ratio and number of stages of the
oxygen compressor. Compression of oxygen consumes additional
energy, however, this saves considerable amount of energy in the
downstream units such as the CPU.
There are some differences in the way the atmospheric boiler
and the pressurized boiler are constructed. The atmospheric boiler
resembles the state of the art pulverized coal boiler with water
walls around the furnace acting as evaporator (radiant heat transfer) followed by a convective section that includes the superheaters

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R. Soundararajan, T. Gundersen / Applied Thermal Engineering 61 (2013) 115e122

Fig. 1. Overall schematic of the oxy-combustion power plant.

and reheaters. The pressurized boiler on the other hand has two
sections with a separate high pressure combustor and a high
pressure HRSG. The convective heat transfer rate is much higher in
a high pressure HRSG that almost all of the heat transfer takes place
only convectively [8]. This results in the lower temperature of ue
gases entering the HRSG, increased ue gas mass ow rates and the
associated fan compression work required. This is one of the
fundamental differences between the atmospheric and the pressurized cases. The combustion temperature in the pressurized
combustor is maintained at 1550  C by circulating 85.3% by mass of
the ue gases after the HRSG. The ash resulting from the coal
combustion is removed in two stages. One is from the combustor as
a molten liquid and the other ash removal is after the HRSG by
using an Electrostatic Precipitator. In the atmospheric combustor,
there is a considerable amount of air leakage into the combustor
due to the operating pressure while this is not the case with
pressurized combustion. Air leakage is an operational issue in coal
based power plants. It depends on many factors such as the size of
the power plant, age, load, etc. While it is possible to minimize and
control the air leakage, it is not possible to eliminate it completely
from an atmospheric pressure system [17]. It is also difcult to
precisely characterize the exact amount of air leakage as it varies
with many factors such as the construction of the boiler. Hence, the
value is assumed from an atmospheric pressure oxy-combustion
power plant of similar size from the NETL report [18]. It is
assumed to be 11 kg/s to the combustor in the base case. As a lot of
energy is spent in the ASU to separate oxygen from air to produce a
relatively pure Oxygen stream; air leakage into the boiler is
considered a huge loss from the energy stand point. Also, more
energy will be required in the CPU to remove the impurities to
achieve pipeline specications. A fan is required to overcome the
gas-side pressure drop in both cases. The boiler fan consumes a
considerable amount of power in the pressurized case due to both
increased mass ows and a different pressure ratio. One of the main
design parameters of the combustor is the excess oxygen at the
combustor exit. An excess oxygen value of 3% on a dry basis at the
combustor exit is chosen from a report by DOE which affects the
oxygen production power, combustion efciency and also the power required for the downstream purication process. An excess
oxygen value of up to 3% does not affect the transport and storage of
the captured CO2 [18].

Preheated feedwater at a supercritical pressure of 325 bar (BFW)

enters the boiler economizer where it is heated before it is converted into steam. The steam reaches a maximum temperature of
600  C which is considered state of the-art of a modern supercritical steam power plant. There is also a reheat stream that is
taken from the turbine at 55 bars (CRH) and then re-enters the
steam turbine at 610  C and a pressure of 50 bars. Pipe pressure
losses in the main steam pipe, cold and hot reheat pipes and other
steam extraction pipes are assumed and maintained consistent
between the cases. The preheat level for the boiler feedwater is
chosen to be 310  C which is in accordance with modern steam
cycle standards. This helps achieve better efciency in the steam
cycle. Due to this high level of preheating, the ue gas exit temperature from the HRSG is rather high at around 335  C. This has an
impact on both the recirculation gas ow and fan power consumption. Also, there is no ue gas desulphurization required
before the gas is recirculated back into the combustor, and thereby
saving some energy. As the ue gas leaving the HRSG has a fairly
high temperature and a lot of water vapour, utilising both the
sensible and latent energy available in the ue gas after the HRSG
becomes imperative. Hence, heat exchangers and an acid
condenser are used downstream before the emission control system and the CPU. Finally, the boiler blow down is not considered in
this simulation.
3.2. Steam cycle
The main steam inlet conditions are 280 bars and 600  C. All the
steam turbine isentropic efciencies are assumed constant to make
calculations simple. The steam turbine isentropic efciencies are
assumed to be 92%, 94% and 88% for the HP, IP and the LP stages,
respectively. Steam seal losses and exhaust end losses are neglected
for simplicity. There are two main pumps present in the steam
cycle, i.e. the condensate forwarding pump and the boiler feedwater pump. The former is electric motor driven while the latter is
driven by a low-pressure turbine. All the pumps are assumed to
have an isentropic efciency of 70%. The energy consumed by the
pumps forms a signicant part of the auxiliary power consumption.
The feedwater preheating train is designed in such a way that it
splits the feedwater temperature rise equally into 35  C intervals
and supplied with extraction steam from the steam turbines. The

R. Soundararajan, T. Gundersen / Applied Thermal Engineering 61 (2013) 115e122

119

Fig. 2. Flue gas purication.

steam extraction pressure is computed based on the terminal

temperature difference in the feedwater heater, the available degree of superheat in the extraction steam and the extraction pipe
pressure losses which are assumed to be constant. Aspen Plus
calculates the mass ows of the extraction steams from the turbines subjected to the Drain Cooler Approach temperature which is
set at 5  C. The heat recovered from the ue gas by the acid
condenser is used to supply a part of the feedwater heating requirements. This not only helps reduce the steam extraction from
the turbines, but also eliminates one or more of the feedwater
heaters and the associated capital cost.
3.3. The emission control system
The emission control system is shown in two parts in Figs. 2 and
3. It is noteworthy to mention that for coals with a sulphur content
of less than 1%, there is no need to remove sulphur from the
exhaust gas before recirculation [18]. Although the concentration of
sulphur compounds is amplied in the boiler due to ue gas
recirculation, it will be well under the boiler design conditions for
the coal considered in this study (0.52% sulphur). The ue gas
stream is cooled to 25  C, any condensation is removed and then
the ue gas is compressed to 15 bars. The ue gas is cooled again
and water is added to remove sulphur as sulphuric acid (Stream 24)
in the water wash column in Fig. 2. The conversion of SO2 to H2SO4
at 15 bars is catalysed by the presence of NO2. NO2 is converted into
NO in the process. Then the ue gas is again compressed to 33 bars
and cooled again. A second water wash column is required to
convert the remaining NO2 and the NO produced in the rst water
wash column to HNO3. Traditional wet ue gas desulfurization is
not required as it is easier to remove SOx and NOx together under
high pressure in a water wash column [19]. The water wash

columns are designed to add a few seconds of holdup to the conversion process by use of a contacting column with pumped around
liquid condensate [19]. Any moisture present is removed by using
adsorption to avoid ice formation in the downstream purication
where it will be cooled below the dew point.
Flue gas stripped completely of SOx and moisture enters the
double ash purication unit shown in Fig. 3. The gas enters a cold
box (E-1) where it is cooled to 30  C (Stream 27) and separated in
a ash drum (F3). Then again, the resulting vapour (Stream 28) is
cooled to 54  C and separated in another ash drum (F4). Cooling
for the above process is provided by evaporating part of the liquid
streams (Stream 29 and 32) after throttling them to a lower pressure. While the impure stream rich in volatiles is vented to the
atmosphere as the only emissions from the power plant, the CO2
rich stream is compressed, cooled and then pumped to the nal
pipeline pressure of 110 bars.
4. Performance and results
Cycles for both the baseline case and the pressurized case are
identical except for the operating pressure of the boiler island and
the number of feedwater preheaters. In the pressurized case, as
more latent heat can be extracted from the ue gas, only two low
pressure-feedwater heaters are required. An oxygen compressor is
also required to maintain the combustor pressure. The mass ow of
the recycle feed changes between the two cases and so does the
pressure drop on the gas side of the steam generator. The CPU remains unchanged between the two cases considered. The performance summary of both cases is presented in Table 4.
It is evident that the pressurized cycle has some clear advantages over the atmospheric case. Total auxiliaries are reduced by
10 MW and the gross power has been increased by 18 MW resulting

Fig. 3. Compression and purication unit (CPU).

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R. Soundararajan, T. Gundersen / Applied Thermal Engineering 61 (2013) 115e122

Table 4
Performance summary.
Item

Baseline

Pressurized

Units

Fuel energy input, LHV

Condenser duty
ST shaft power
ST-Gen losses
Gross electric power
Steam cycle aux.
ASU power req.
Boiler island aux.
CPU power req.
Total auxiliaries
Net electric power
Net plant efciency, LHV
Net plant heat rate, LHV
Net plant efciency, HHV
CO2 emissions

1610.9
860.1
789.3
14.9
774.3
6.8
119.0
15.4
82.5
223.7
550.6
34.2
10,532
32.8
51

1610.9
899.7
807.5
15.3
792.2
6.8
148.4
24.9
33.7
213.8
578.4
35.9
10,026
34.5
21

MWth
MWth
MW
MW
MWe
MWe
MWe
MWe
MWe
MW
MW
%
kJ/kWh
%
g/kWh

in a net power increase of 28 MW. Table 5 provides a summary of

major streams in the cycle for both cases. The air leakage stream is
absent in the pressurized case as the boiler is operating at a pressure higher than the atmospheric pressure. In addition to the
improvement in the efciency of the power plant, the CO2 recovery
rate is also increased. The air emission of the pressurized case is
now 21 g/kWh compared to the 51 g/kWh of the atmospheric case.
This represents a 2.8 percentage point increase in the CO2 recovery
factor to 97.8%. Savings in terms of auxiliary power consumption is
achieved in a number of ways in the pressurized case. Various
factors that have a major impact on the overall efciency are discussed in detail in the following sub-sections.
4.1. Oxygen compression effects
Although more work is required to compress the oxygen rich
stream before the combustor, savings achieved in the CPU

Table 5
Stream data, stream numbers from gures (a e atmospheric, b e pressurized).
Stream no.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
22
23
24
27
28
29
33
39

Temperature  C

Pressure bars

Mass ow kg/s

15.00
340.24
1876.89
N/A
335.00
340.19
340.19
340.19
57.38
310.00
600.02
610.83
32.15
88.12
32.16
32.44
83.12
172.00
355.58
292.9
25.00
29.18
30.00
30.00
30.00
15.00
33.49

132.25
342.97
1531.90
342.97
335.00
342.99
342.99
342.99
57.40
310.00
600.02
610.83
32.15
102.60
32.10
32.38
97.62
172.00
355.58
30.8
25.00
39.24
30.00
30.00
30.00
15.00
33.58

1.60
1.01
1.01
N/A
1.01
1.04
1.04
1.04
1.04
325.52
280.00
50.00
0.05
1.21
0.05
22.00
22.00
22.00
62.16
15
15
15
33.00
32.00
32.00
31.00
110.00

10.50
10.00
10.00
10.00
10.00
10.00
10.00
10.00
10.00
325.93
280.00
50.00
0.05
3.61
0.05
22.00
22.00
22.00
62.16
15
15
15
33.00
32.00
32.00
31.00
110.00

138.62
498.23
702.79
N/A
702.79
702.79
204.56
498.23
204.56
592.00
592.00
497.52
347.75
64.80
450.06
450.06
450.06
450.06
497.52
179.95
177.03
7.92
176.90
45.69
131.22
25.12
151.78

141.30
741.34
937.59
399.18
1336.77
1336.77
196.23
1140.53
196.23
602.80
602.80
506.61
364.47
55.45
458.17
458.17
458.17
458.17
506.61
169.70
168.77
5.93
168.65
21.00
147.65
11.80
156.85

compression work more than compensates for it. ASU power

requirement is increased by 29.4 MW, while the CPU energy
requirement is reduced by 48.8 MW resulting in a net savings of
19.4 MW. The mass ow of the oxygen stream is always smaller than
the ue gas stream due to the addition of carbon from the fuel coal.
The ue gas is mainly a combination of CO2 and H2O. The latter can
easily be separated without much power consumption by means of
condensation. At the same time, the heat recovered can be used to
generate additional power. The CO2 present in the ue gas, however,
has to be compressed by the CPU compressors. Also, the ue gas
contains nitrogen, oxygen and argon both due to the purity level of
the oxygen stream and air leakage in case of the atmospheric boiler.
This also consumes some energy in the CPU. Pressurization helps
compress only the oxygen stream and not the carbon from the fuel.
While injecting the solid fuel into the combustor consumes some
energy, it will be much less compared to gas compression of similar
mass ows and pressure ratios. Thus, the power required to feed the
coal into the combustor is not considered in the calculations. Besides that, pressurization eliminates air leakage into the boiler and
hence further reduces the mass ow of the gases to be processed by
the CPU. In an air red coal based power plant, the air leakage
presents challenges such as reduced efciency and operability of the
power plant [17]. But in an oxy-combustion coal based power plant,
the air leakage is responsible for increased auxiliary consumption at
the CPU. Atmospheric air leaking into the boiler goes against the
objectives of the oxy-ring.
4.2. Fan power requirement
The recycle ratio in the pressurized case is different from that of
the baseline case because the combustor is considered adiabatic and
no heat transfer to the water/steam takes place in the high pressure
combustor. All the heat transfer takes place in a steam generator
located after the combustor and hence the ue gas needs to be
cooled before the steam generator to avoid hot corrosion. This leads
to more ue gas being circulated for temperature control. Also, due
to the change in pressure drop, the fan power requirement in the
pressurized case is increased by 9.5 MW. The changes in auxilliary
power consumption between the cases are shown in Fig. 4.
4.3. Enhanced heat recovery
Addition of heat to the steam cycle has some effects on the efciency of the steam cycle. For instance, heat added through the
boiler area (HRSG) of the steam cycle is better converted to work in
the steam turbines. Heat added in the feedwater preheating is not
efciently converted into work due to the lower quality of the heat.
Every MW of additional heat in the HRSG generates 0.5 MW
additional power in the steam turbines, whereas the same amount

Fig. 4. Auxiliary power consumption.

R. Soundararajan, T. Gundersen / Applied Thermal Engineering 61 (2013) 115e122

250
200

Atmospheric case
Pressurized case

150
100
50
0
Heat recovery, MW

Steam Extraction, kg/s

Fig. 5. Acid condenser heat recovery and steam extraction.

Percentage points

Power in MW

Acid condenser increased heat

recovery

0.2

Gross power increase due to fan

compression

0.3
4.7
0.6

Aux. net savings due to pressure ratio

& mass flow

0.6

can be recovered in the pressurized case. This helps generate

additional power in the turbines by reducing the amount of steam
that is extracted for feedwater preheating purpose. A pressurized
boiler must have thicker walls and other features such as pressure
seals that are gas tight in order to avoid hot gases leaking into the
power plant premises. Such a system would be much expensive
than todays power plant. At the same time, as the pressure becomes high, the heat transfer is improved and size of the unit is
reduced, saving some capital cost. An economic analysis is required
to nd out the cost optimal operating pressure. In this study, a net
reduction in auxiliary power consumption is achieved despite an
increase in fan power consumption. Besides, half of the additional
auxiliary power consumed by the oxygen compressors and the
recirculation fan is recovered back in the steam cycle. As the gross
power output goes up and the auxiliary power consumption goes
down, the net efciency is increased. Efciency improvement
achieved is in the order of 1.7 percentage points. In addition, the
CO2 recovery factor is improved by 2.8 percentage points to 97.8%.
Acknowledgements

3.5

Gross power incrase due to oxygen

compression

121

9.7

9.9

Fig. 6. Contribution of various factors to the overall efciency improvement.

of heat added through the acid condenser generates only 0.12 MW

of power. Due to a higher pressure of the ue gases, the dew point
of the water vapour is raised and hence more of the latent heat
available in the ue gas slip stream can now be recovered in the
acid condenser. This takes the feedwater temperature prior to the
low pressure-feedwater heater to 98.3 compared to the 83.7 degrees of the baseline case. In other words, as much as 30 MW more
heat is added to the steam cycle in the pressurized case. This results
in an increase in the gross power produced by about 3.5 MW. As a
result, only six feedwater heaters, including the deaerator, are
required in the steam cycle. This saves both capital cost as well as
some extraction steam from the turbines. It is noteworthy to
mention that almost half the power spent to compress the oxygen
stream and the hot gases in the HRSG (fan) is now recovered back in
the steam cycle, thereby driving up the gross power by 18 MW.
Fig. 5 shows the heat recovery in the acid condenser and the corresponding steam extraction from the turbines for feedwater preheating. Fig. 6 shows the contribution of various factors leading to
the overall improvement in the power plant efciency of the
pressurized case.

5. Conclusion
The simulation results show that a pressurized oxy-combustion
power cycle is more efcient than its atmospheric counterpart. By
compressing a smaller amount of gas (oxygen) before the
combustor, considerable savings can be achieved in the compression work of the exhaust gases after the combustor. The savings in
auxiliary power consumption can mainly be attributed to the
elimination of air leakage into the boiler. In addition, more of the
latent heat available in the ue gas which is rich in water content

This publication has been produced with support from the

BIGCCS Centre, performed under the Norwegian research program,
Centres for Environment-friendly Energy Research (FME). The authors
acknowledge the following partners for their contributions: Aker
Solutions, ConocoPhillips, Det Norske Veritas, Gassco, Hydro, Shell,
Statoil, TOTAL, GDF SUEZ and the Research Council of Norway
(193816/S60).
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