Assessment of an IGCC based trigeneration system for power, hydrogen and synthesis fuel production

•A conceptual zero-emission multigeneration system is developed.•Energy and exergy based performance analyses and assessments are performed.•Parametric studies are conducted to investigate how efficiencies are affected by varying operating conditions.

In this study, an integrated gasification combined cycle based trigeneration system is proposed to produce power, hydrogen and various Fischer–Tropsch (FT) synthesis products. The proposed plant consists of an (a) air separation unit; (b) a gasification system with coal preparation and gas clean up units; (c) Fischer–Tropsch synthesis unit, (d) pressure swing absorption (PSA) unit for hydrogen production, (e) an integrated Brayton cycle, Steam Rankine Cycle, Organic Rankine cycle system for power production. The Aspen Plus software package is utilized to simulate this modified integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant for five different Turkish lignites. A case study is conducted for a large scale plant with 30 kg/s of lignite feed. The results of this study show that using such an integrated system for low-quality lignites will offer a more efficient, cost effective and environmental friendly option. The overall energy and exergy efficiencies of the system are found to be 53% and 46%, respectively.