ASPEN Plus simulation of coal integrated gasification combined blast furnace slag waste heat recovery system

• An integrated system of coal gasification with slag waste heat recovery was proposed.
• The goal of BF slag heat saving and emission reduction was achieved by this system.
• The optimal parameters were obtained and the waste heat recovery rate reached 83.08%.
• About 6.64 kmol/min syngas was produced when using one ton BF slag to provide energy.

This article presented a model for the system of coal gasification with steam and blast furnace slag waste heat recovery by using the ASPEN Plus as the simulating and modeling tool. Constrained by mass and energy balance for the entire system, the model included the gasifier used to product syngas at the chemical equilibrium based on the Gibbs free energy minimization approach and the boiler used to recover the heat of the blast furnace slag (BF slag) and syngas. Two parameters of temperature and steam to coal ratio (S/C) were considered to account for their impacts on the Datong coal (DT coal) gasification process. The carbon gasification efficiency (CE), cold gasification efficiency (CGE), syngas product efficiency (PE) and the heating value of syngas produced by 1 kg pulverized coal (HV) were adopted as the indicators to examine the gasification performance. The optimal operating temperature and S/C were 800 °C and 1.5, respectively. At this condition, CE reached above 90% and the maximum values of the CGE, PE and HV were all obtained. Under the optimal operating conditions, 1000 kg/min BF slag, about 40.41 kg/min DT pulverized coal and 77.94 kg/min steam were fed into the gasifier and approximate 6.64 kmol/min syngas could be generated. Overall, the coal was converted to clean syngas by gasification reaction and the BF slag waste heat was also recovered effectively (reached up to 83.08%) in this system, achieving the objective of energy saving and emission reduction.