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Oxy-Fuel Combustion Feasibility at Mirfa

This document evaluates the feasibility of deploying oxy-fuel combustion schemes at the Mirfa Plant in Abu Dhabi to utilize waste oxygen from air separation units. Oxy-fuel combustion involves using oxygen instead of air for combustion, producing a CO2-enriched flue gas that facilitates carbon capture. The Mirfa Plant produces large quantities of high-purity oxygen as a byproduct, presenting an opportunity to reduce the costs and energy needs of carbon capture. The study develops process models to simulate natural gas and coal-fired oxy-fuel systems. The results show that natural gas produces less CO2 per unit of energy but has little effect on NOx levels. Oxy-fuel combustion is found to be technically viable and

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4 views2 pages

Oxy-Fuel Combustion Feasibility at Mirfa

This document evaluates the feasibility of deploying oxy-fuel combustion schemes at the Mirfa Plant in Abu Dhabi to utilize waste oxygen from air separation units. Oxy-fuel combustion involves using oxygen instead of air for combustion, producing a CO2-enriched flue gas that facilitates carbon capture. The Mirfa Plant produces large quantities of high-purity oxygen as a byproduct, presenting an opportunity to reduce the costs and energy needs of carbon capture. The study develops process models to simulate natural gas and coal-fired oxy-fuel systems. The results show that natural gas produces less CO2 per unit of energy but has little effect on NOx levels. Oxy-fuel combustion is found to be technically viable and

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tiu4ton
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© All Rights Reserved
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The Evaluation of Oxy-Fuel Combustion Deployment at the Mirfa Plant in UAE

Vinicius Bueno1, Ahmed Alhajaj1, Mohammad Abu Zahra1


1

The Institute Center for Energy (iEnergy), Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, P.O. Box
54224, Masdar City, United Arab Emirates

Abstract
Oxy-fuel combustion is currently one of the promising options for carbon dioxide capture and, it has
been undergoing rapid development in research and pilot scale in the last decades. The oxy-fuel
combustion consists of using oxygen instead of air as the oxidant gas, which results in producing a
CO2-enriched flue gas that facilitates further purification in addition to reducing nitrogen oxides
formation. Nonetheless, there are still some technical barriers that hinder deploying it in a commercial
scale. The main challenge within this technology is the production of oxygen, which is expensive to
produce from air separation units, whether by adsorption or cryogenic means.
In Mirfa Plant situated in Abu Dhabi, there exists an opportunity of utilizing waste oxygen produced
from air separation unit, which provides gaseous nitrogen (GAN) for injection into on-shore gas
reservoirs located in Habshan. This large quantity of high purity oxygen could be utilized for oxyfuel power plant with CCS, which results in reducing the cost of operation and energy consumption
of air separation units in addition to providing a stream of CO2 that will be used for EOR activities.
The Mirfa plant, which started operation in June 2011, consists of two identical air separation trains
producing 670,000 Nm3/h of GAN at a purity of less than 10 ppm oxygen in nitrogen, while the
remaining 71% purity oxygen is vented to the atmosphere.
This work focuses on techno-economic evaluation of the feasibility of deploying different oxy-fuel
combustion schemes considering natural gas and coal as fuel. These will be evaluated and ranked
according to their advantages, technical risks, costs, energy output, amount of CO2 produced and
captured, and technology readiness level. Flowsheet models of different oxy-fuel processes
containing air separation unit, turbine cycle, boiler and CO2 capture units will be developed in ASPEN
Plus and a number of simulations will be carried out to identify the best process synthesis, operating
parameters such oxygen concentration and products (power, heat and CO2). Equipment selection and
economic aspects will be evaluated with the aid of this software.
The results of the simulation process show the influence of excess oxygen ratio, temperature and fuel
choice on the energy output and flue gas composition. Burning natural gas produces nearly half as
much carbon dioxide per unit of energy compared with burning coal. This is mainly due to natural
gas higher energy content relative to coal. The production of NOx is little influenced by O2
concentration since N2 is the limiting factor. Furthermore, due to the high mole concentration of CO2,
the flue gas can be compressed directly to accomplish near zero emission of CO2 to the atmosphere.

Assuredly, this work will define the major challenges (technical and operational) and opportunities
surrounding oxy-fuel combustion process and the overall potential of deployment. The results will
provide the necessary technical data and, it will identify areas for improvements required to deploy
oxy-fuel combustion commercially in the UAE. This represents a great commercial advantage since
there is still no operational power plant based on oxy-fuel combustion in this region.

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