Formic acid synthesis – a case study of CO₂ utilization from coal direct chemical looping combustion power plant

ABSTRACT

Chemical looping combustion (CLC) is an encouraging technology for hydrogen and power co-generation with efficient CO₂ capture. Utilization of the captured CO₂ is a much more important task to realize negative CO₂ emissions. The objective of the work is to explore a case study of carbon dioxide utilization (CDU) in the form of formic acid synthesis using the captured CO₂ and co-generated H₂ from coal direct chemical looping (CDCL) power plant. Steady-state simulations are performed on the power and H₂ co-generation CDCL plant integrated with formic acid synthesis and presented a comparison of overall performance of the CDCL plants with and without CDU integration. The simulation results revealed that the formic acid synthesis integrated CDCL plant avoids release of 62.49 kg.CO₂/GJ of fuel input into the environment and utilizes the captured CO₂ completely with the net electrical efficiency penalty of 5.8%.

KEYWORDS:

• Chemical looping combustion
• CO₂ utilization
• formic acid synthesis
• coal direct chemical looping

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Science and Engineering Research Board [SB/FTP/ETA-0421/2013].

Notes on contributors

Gajanan Dattarao Surywanshi

Gajanan Dattarao Surywanshi is a research scholar in the Department of Chemical Engineering at NIT Warangal, India. He is currently working in the area of chemical looping combustion of high ash Indian coals and CO₂ utilization.

B. Basant Kumar Pillai

B. Basant Kumar Pillai is a research scholar in the Department of Chemical Engineering at NIT Warangal, India. He is currently working in the area of calcium and chemical looping combustion.n.

Venkata Suresh Patnaikuni

Venkata Suresh Patnaikuni is an Associate Professor in Department of Chemical Engineering at NIT Warangal, India. He has more than twelve years of teaching and research experience. His current research interests include Fuel Cells, Flow batteries, CO2 capture technologies – Chemical and Calcium Looping Combustion, Modelling and Simulation and Computational Fluid Dynamics. He is an active researcher in the area of CO₂ capture and utilization.

Ramsagar Vooradi

Ramsagar Vooradi is working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at NIT Warangal. He has six years of teaching and research experience. His research interests include chemical and calcium looping technologies, Modeling and Simulation, Process Scheduling.

Sarath Babu Anne

Sarath Babu Anne Anne is working as Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at NIT Warangal. He has more than 30 years of teaching and research experience. His research interests include CO₂ capture and utilization, Modeling and Simulation.