Oxygen production technologies for IGCC power plants with CO2 capture

IGCC power plants seem to represent one of the most appealing options to produce electric energy from coal and low grade solid fuels with interesting plant efficiency and low environmental impact. As a matter of fact the majority of gasification-based power plants are equipped with oxygen-blown gasifiers which have two main advantages with respect to air-blown reactors: high values of cold gas efficiency and an N2 deprived syngas. The aim of this paper is to compare two different oxygen production technologies for oxidant supply to the gasification island. An IGCC power plant with pre-combustion CO2 capture has been modelled considering: (i) a cryogenic distillation ASU based on a pumped liquid oxygen cycle; (ii) an innovative OTM-based oxygen production technology integrated in the power island. An overall heat and material balance has been estimated to evaluate plant performances and compare the two options; our thermodynamic analysis shows a promising improvement of the overall plant performance for the OTM-based IGCC nonetheless several key issues deserve a more in depth analysis to asses the real potentialities of membrane-based oxygen production technology.