Boiling coal in water: Hydrogen production and power generation system with zero net CO2 emission based on coal and supercritical water gasification

Coal is the single most important fuel for power generation today. Nowadays, most coal is consumed by means of “burning coal in air” and pollutants such as NOx, SOx, CO2, PM2.5 etc. are inevitably formed and mixed with excessive amount of inner gases, so the pollutant emission reduction system is complicated and the cost is high. IGCC is promising because coal is gasified before utilization. However, the coal gasifier mostly operates in gas environments, so special equipments are needed for the purification of the raw gas and CO2 emission reduction. Coal and supercritical water gasification process is another promising way to convert coal efficiently and cleanly to H2 and pure CO2. The gasification process is referred to as “boiling coal in water” and pollutants containing S and N deposit as solid residual and can be discharged from the gasifier. A novel thermodynamics cycle power generation system was proposed by us in State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering (SKLMFPE) of Xi'an jiaotong University (XJTU), which is based on coal and supercritical water gasification and multi-staged steam turbine reheated by hydrogen combustion. It is characterized by its high coal-electricity efficiency, zero net CO2 emission and no pollutants. A series of experimental devices from quartz tube system to a pilot scale have been established to realize the complete gasification of coal in SKLMFPE. It proved the prospects of coal and supercritical water gasification process and the novel thermodynamics cycle power generation system.