Novel cycles for power generation with CO2 capture using OMCM technology

Most capture technologies, today, are associated with large energy penalties, thus decreasing their economic viability. Efficiency is one of the most important feature when designing and selecting power plants with CO2 capture. Oxygen mixed conducting membranes (OMCM) that separate oxygen from air can be used to develop oxy-combustion concepts to capture carbon dioxide with a small energy penalty. This high temperature membrane is combined with two heat exchangers (a low temperature and a high temperature one) on either end of the membrane and a combustor to form a MCM reactor that can replace the combustion chamber in a traditional gas turbine. The MCM reactor is integrated in five power cycles to provide flexibility, both in the extent of carbon capture and in different process schemes such as polygeneration. Thermodynamic evaluations for five concepts utilizing the MCM technology have been presented. The modeling results show that these concepts offer efficiencies in the range 49-55% including CO2 compression to 110 bar, and 85-100% CO2 capture. These concepts have the highest efficiencies of all previously published results for large-scale power cycles using natural gas as fuel. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved