H2 coproduction in IGCC with CCS via coal and biomass mixture using advanced technologies

• Advanced technologies and their integrations for H2 coproducing IGCCs are identified.
• HHV and moisture% of feedstock have significant effects on plant performance.
• Net equivalent power efficiencies of coproducing IGCCs range from 35% to 38%.
• Thermal performance of identified H2 coproducing IGCCs are competitive with SMR H2 plants.
• Cost of produced H2 ranges from $1.42/kg to $2.77/kg depending on feedstock.

The main objective of this investigation is to conceptually design and evaluate electricity and H2 coproduction integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plants with carbon capture and storage (CCS) via coal and biomass mixtures using promising advanced technologies that are under development. The evolved advanced IGCC plant concept utilizes ion transport membrane (ITM) oxygen technology, dry feed gasifier (entrained flow, slagging, single stage, down-flow), warm gas cleanup processes, regenerable CO2 sorbents technology, an H class gas turbine with steam cooling, and pressure swing adsorption (PSA) for H2 separation. IGCC coproduction plants showed net equivalent power efficiencies ranging from 35.21% to 37.98%, while without coproduction showed corresponding efficiencies ranging from 36.76% to 38.26%. Sensitivity analyses on various feedstock mixtures show that characteristics of feedstocks such as high heating value and moisture content have significant effect on gasifier efficiency and auxiliary power consumption. Incremental analyses show cofeeding and coproduction are competitive with respect to plant performance. The calculated levelized cost of electricity with the bituminous coal is $102.9/MW h while that with the lignite is $108.1/MW h, resulting in a cost of H2 that ranged from $1.42/kg to $2.77/kg depending on the feedstock and is lower than the US Department of Energy’s announced H2 cost goal of $3.00/kg in July 14, 2005.