Energy, exergy and economic analyses of a novel biomass fueled power plant with carbon capture and sequestration

Linbo Yan; Yang Cao; Boshu He

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.015

Energy, exergy and economic analyses of a novel biomass fueled power plant with carbon capture and sequestration

Sci Total Environ. 2019 Nov 10:690:812-820. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.015. Epub 2019 Jul 3.

Authors

Linbo Yan¹, Yang Cao², Boshu He²

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Combustion and Thermal System, School of Mechanical, Electronic and Control Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China. Electronic address: lbyan@bjtu.edu.cn.
² Institute of Combustion and Thermal System, School of Mechanical, Electronic and Control Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China.

PMID: 31302546
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.015

Abstract

The biomass based power plants, especially those with the carbon capture unit, usually suffer the issue of low electric efficiency, which is adverse to their commercial application. As one approach to solving this issue, a novel biomass fueled power plant with carbon capture and sequestration (BFP-CCS) is proposed in this work. The BFP-CCS subunit models are first validated before the integrated model of BFP-CCS is built. Then, the BFP-CCS characteristics are analyzed in terms of energy, exergy and economics, and the optimum operation condition of BFP-CCS is determined. Based on this research, it is found that BFP-CCS performs best at the H₂O/Mn₂O₃ mass ratio of 1.6, the H₂O/O₂ molar ratio of 2.8, the O₂/biomass mass ratio of 0.22 and the fuel utilization factor of 0.65. The corresponding net efficiency, the life cycle CO₂ emission and the levelized cost of electricity of BFP-CCS are 51.7%, $0.0501 /kWh and -0.591 kg/kWh, respectively. The biggest contributors of the energy and exergy losses are the steam turbine and the solid oxide fuel cell in BFP-CCS, respectively. The major implication of this study is that an efficient and economical BFP-CCS system is put forward, which is promising for CO₂ removal during power generation.

Keywords: Biomass; Economics; Energy; Exergy; Greenhouse gas; Power plant.