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Module 2: Solid Fossil Fuel (Coal)

Lecture 15: Coal Gasification

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Keywords: Coal preparation, purification, gasification, gasifier, syngas

2.6 Coal gasification

Coal gasification technology is efficiently used for converting coal to power, chemicals,

fertilizers, and fuels. This gasification process is a clean technology to decompose coal into

its different components in presence of steam and oxygen at high pressure and high

temperature. This leads to the production of synthesis gas, which is mainly a mixture of

carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Coal gasification can be utilized to produce methanol as

alternative energy source.

The major applications of coal gasification are in

 Power generation

 Fertilizer

 Methanol synthesis

 Hydrogen

 Hydrocarbons

It provides the only route to convert coal to hydrogen directly. In this process, coal is

combined with oxygen and steam to produce a combustible gas, waste gases, char, and ash.

Coal gasification may be generally represented by reaction

CmHn + 0.5mO2  mCO + 0.5 n H2

Where, ‘m’ and ‘n’ depends on the composition of coal. The reactions in different stages of

the process are as follows:

i) CO + H2O  CO2 + H2

ii) C + CO2  2 CO

iii) C + H2O  CO + H2

iv) CH4 + H2O  CO + 3H2

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The gasification of coal generally consist of four steps:

 Pre treatment of Coal

 Gasification

 Gas cleaning, and

 Gas beneficiation.

The process flow diagram for coal gasification is described in Fig.1.

Fig. 1 Coal Gasification

Selection of suitable coal for gasification

The selection of an appropriate coal is the important step at the initial stage of coal

gasification. The various sources of coal samples are analyzed and compared in terms of their

costs and compositions. The comparison is generally made by the percentages of sulfur

content, fixed carbon, oxygen, ash and other volatile content. The sub-bituminous coal is

found to have the lowest percentage of sulfur content in comparison with lignite and

bituminous coal.

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One important step in the preparation of the syngas is the removal of acid gas, which can be

composed of H2S and CO2. In high temperature processes all sulfur components in the feed

are converted to undesired products, such as, H2S or COS, which are needed to be removed

by acid gas removal process. Therefore, a low sulfur content coal is a desirable feed.

Then ideally, the syngas mixture would have a 1:2 CO to H2 ratio. Steam can also be used to

produce more hydrogen by reacting it with carbon monoxide via the water-gas shift reaction

for methanol synthesis:

CO + H2O  CO2 + H2

Methanol is produced by the reaction

CO2 + 3H2  CH3 OH + H2O

Description of Gasification process

Coal preparation

In the pretreatment step, coal is first dried and crushed or pulverized for the fluid or entrained

bed gasifiers. The moisture of coals should be removed by drying. Some caking coals may

require partial oxidation to simplify gasifier operation. For feed to fixed bed gasifiers,

briqueting of fines coal particle are required in the pretreatment process.

Gasification

The pre treated coal is charged into the gasification reactor where it reacts with oxygen (air)

and steam. The gasification reaction usually takes place at high temperatures from 800 to

1900°C and high pressure up to 10 MPa. When coal is burned with less than a stoichiometric

quantity of air, with or without steam, the product is a low-heat-content gas, which after

purification can be used as fuel gas. Using oxygen in place of air produces medium-heat-

content gas. Some of CO must be reacted with steam by shift conversion to get additional

hydrogen. The ashes from gasifier are removed as molten slag or dry condition.

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Shell Coal Gasification Process is the oldest technology and it was the first commercial plant

used in 1956.

The process conditions were:

• Pressure: 20 –40 bar

• Temperature: 1300 –1800 °C

• Oxygen/coal (MAF) ratio: 1

• Steam pressures: 30 –130 bar

Purification of product gas

The gas products from the gasifier contain a mixture of different gases such as, carbon

monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, methane, other organic vapours and hydrogen sulfide in

different concentrations. Nitrogen is also present in gas products if air is used. Other

impurities are particulates, and water vapour. The product gas is then purified prior to their

combustion through the removal of particulate matters, such as, coal dust, ash and tar

aerosols. The tar and oil are removed by gas quenching method, and then the acid gas is

removed by solvent treatment technology. The tar and oils are condensed in the gas

quenching and cooling section of the plant. Ammonia is removed from the gas in a scrubber

by using either aqueous or organic liquid. Acid gases such as H2S, COS, CS2, mercaptans,

and CO2 can be removed from gas by an acid gas removal step, where it is treated with a

solvent to absorb the acid gases. Methanol may be used as a solvent to separate acid gases

such as hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide from feed gas streams.

In the shift conversion process, H2O and a portion of the CO catalytically react to form CO2

and H2. After passing through an absorber for CO2 removal, CO and H2 remain in the product

gas. They are reacted in a methanation reactor to yield CH4 and H2O. Many processes are

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directly related with a coal gasification process, such as, oxygen plant, power and steam

plant, sulfur recovery unit etc.

Different Gasification Technique

Following types of Coal Gasification reactors may be used

 Fixed bed gasifier

 Moving bed gasifier

 Fluid bed gasifier

 Entrained-flow gasifiers.

In the moving bed gasifier the coal bed slowly moves downwards counter currently with

respect to air and is gasified. It has the lowest oxygen consumption. Moving bed gasifier can

operate at the lowest temperature, which inhibits the reaction rate and increase the

maintenance cost.

The fluid bed gasifier facilitates good mixing and it has low overall cost. However, the

conversion rate of carbon is lower in comparison with the other two types due to some carbon

lost with the ash. Also the fluid bed gasifier is appropriate for low rank coals like lignite, as

opposed to sub-bituminous. In the entrained flow gasifier, the fine coal particles react with

cocurrently flowing steam and oxygen. Since the gasifier operates at a high temperature, a

good conversion of about 99% is obtained and the destruction of tar and oil yields a very pure

syngas. However, the entrained flow gasifier has a high oxygen demand and also the high ash

content in the sub-bituminous coal would increase the oxygen consumption.

Overall, the entrained flow gasifier is chosen as the gasifier technology for its high carbon

conversion and purity of the resulting syngas.

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Both the dry and wet coal feed can be used for the entrained gasifier. For dry coal feed, it

requires about 25% less oxygen consumption and which can optimize the gas production rate.

Whereas, a wet coal feed needs more oxygen consumption and it decreases the efficiency due

to the evaporation of water. So, a dry coal feed is much better than a wet feed for the

entrained flow gasifier to reduce the required oxygen.

Two different types of gasifiers are used in dry-coal feed gasifiers, single stage and two stage

gasifiers. In single stage entrained-flow gasifier, gas with high purity is obtained. It ensures

low CO2 and high carbon conversion, in a two-stage gasifier, there is an increase in the

efficiency from single stage gasifier. The oxygen consumption is also less.

Out of the types of gasifiers mentioned above, the Noell gasifier and the CCP gasifier can be

considered. The Noell gasifier is a single stage gasifier. The CCP gasifier is relatively new

and is advantageous because it uses air as the oxidant, which is readily available. The carbon

conversion rate is 99.8%, with a variety of coals. Other advantages include lower NOx and

SOx emissions, a reduction in solid waste generated.

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Reference:

1. Kinetics of Coal Gasification, James L. Johnson, John Wiley & Sons; 1st edition. 1979.

2. Coal Combustion and Combustion Products, Xianglin Shen, Coal, Oil Shale, Natural

Bitumen, Heavy Oil and Peat, Vol-1, Ed. G. Jinshen, East China University of Science and

Technology, Encyclopaedia of Life Supports System.

3. David A. Bell, Brian F. Towler, Maohong Fan, Coal Gasification and Its Applications ,

Ebook, William Andrew.

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