Pre-combustion CO2 removal in IGCC plant by MDEA scrubbing: modifications to the process flowsheet for energy saving

摘要

Amine scrubbing can be successfully applied to pre-combustion CO2 removal from syngas before its combustion for power production. However, the amine-based CO2 capture process is highly energy intensive, due to the heat duty at the reboiler of the regeneration column of the plant. This paper focuses on configurations of the acid gas removal section that could promote energy saving in an air-blown integrated gasification combined cycle plant. Some modifications of the base scheme, composed of the absorption and distillation columns, have been considered. A sensitivity assessment has been carried out in order to choose the optimal operating parameters, with regard to the energy requirements. Among the configurations presented in this paper, the scheme that meets the constraints on the CO2 recovery and on the composition of the acid gas rich stream, with an improvement of the energy performance of the overall power plant, has been determined.