Oxycoal UK

The project is aligned with the Low Carbon Energy Technologies priority. Specifically, the proposal is focussed on the development of oxy-fuel firing as a carbon abatement technology, and directly targets the key themes of Combustion technologies that improve plant efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions and Carbon capture technologies, from pre- or post-combustion or oxy-fuel firing technologies . As indicated in the UK Government's Carbon Abatement Technology Strategy (DTI/Pub UR 05/844, June 2005) future thermal power plants will be configured to minimise CO2 emissions. Pulverised coal-fired plant, operating in oxy-fuel firing mode and specifically designed for CO2 capture, has been identified in IEA studies to be a highly competitive clean coal power generation technology, ideally suited to new build advanced/ultra-supercritical plant or for retrofit to existing plant. This project aims to advance the current state-of-art in oxy-fuel firing by addressing critical technology gaps ahead of extensive component testing, plant design and demonstration. The project objectives are: i) to understand the effect of coal type on oxy-fuel combustion; ii) to determine the impact of oxy-fuel on slagging, fouling, & high temperature corrosion; iii) to develop a novel process for NOx/SO2 removal & CO2 purification; iv) to undertake pre-engineering for the testing of a full-scale oxy-fuel burner; and v) to assess reliability, availability, maintainability & operability (RAMO) and safety issues relating to oxy-fuel firing.