Abstract:

Carbon capture technologies are a major tool to control climate change caused by CO2 emissions. The current technologies for carbon capture, though developed technologically, have a high efficiency penalty and cost associated with them, making them economically challenging to implement. In order to enhance efficiency and reduce costs, pressurized oxy-combustion processes are being developed. At higher pressures, among other things, the moisture in the flue gas can be condensed at higher temperatures and hence integrated into the steam cycle to improve the plant efficiency. In this talk, a fuel-staged, pressurized oxy-combustion (SPOC) process would be presented. This fuel-staging allows for the flue gas recycle ratio to be reduced from 70% to 5%, or in other words, the combustion would have no overall dilution gas (either N2 or CO2). Fuel-staging, and resulting radiative trapping at high pressures, will be discussed as a means to control the temperature and heat flux to the walls. Numerical and some preliminary experimental results would be discussed to provide a better understanding of this process.

About the speaker:

Akshay Gopan is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, with a focus on oxy-fuel combustion. He did his B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering, with minor in Environmental Science & Engg., from IIT Bombay. He is currently involved in developing a thorough understanding of a fuel-staged, pressurized oxy-combustion process for carbon capture. During the course of his research, he has worked on several projects involving solid, liquid and gaseous fuels at scales that spans from small flat flame burners to 1 MW boilers, understanding volatile flame lengths, heat flux, ash deposition, etc. His interests are in flame design to control heat flux, and understanding soot formation, mineral transformation and deposition on boiler tubes.