Clean heat, power, and hydrogen from biomass and waste
Lead Research Organisation:
CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY
Department Name: School of Water, Energy and Environment
Abstract
The decarbonisation of the power, heat and industrial sectors is critical to meeting the Paris Agreement targets that suggested keeping the global mean temperature below 2oC and undertaking efforts to limit it to 1.5oC above pre-industrial. The power sector can be decarbonised via the deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and renewable energy sources, fuel switching from fossil fuels to biomass and hydrogen, as well as implementation of high-efficiency power generation technologies, such as fuel cells. In addition, biomass and hydrogen have been identified as plausible replacements for fossil fuels to fire industrial processes, in which CO2 emissions stem from both fossil fuel combustion and the process itself, and district heating systems. Finally, application of CCS is expected to be the only route to decarbonise the waste incinerators that utilise the municipal solid wastes to produce heat and power. The processes based on the sorption enhanced hydrogen production from biomass and/or wastes linked with high-temperature fuel cells and advanced power cycles for combined production of heat and power are expected to have a significant potential to ensure high fuel conversions at low- to negative-emissions of CO2 and an affordable cost. As such concepts have not been developed yet, this project will propose novel configurations and systematically assess their techno-economic feasibility to enable a step-change in decarbonisation of power, heat, and industrial sectors.
Organisations
Studentship Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EP/N509450/1 | 01/10/2016 | 30/09/2021 | |||
| 2276900 | Studentship | EP/N509450/1 | 03/06/2019 | 03/06/2022 | Monica Da Silva Santos |
| EP/R513027/1 | 01/10/2018 | 30/09/2023 | |||
| 2276900 | Studentship | EP/R513027/1 | 03/06/2019 | 03/06/2022 | Monica Da Silva Santos |
| Description | An energy-intensive industry, such as pulp and paper, can turn from electricity importer to electricity exporter when calcium looping is implemented to capture the CO2 emissions. In this case, one of the pulp and paper processes (Kraft process) is adapted to capture the CO2 emitted by the other industry's sources. The cost associated with the capture of CO2 emissions is estimated to be 39.0 €/tCO2. Furthermore, this study showed that pulp and paper industry has the potential to become a carbon-negative industry, which would mean additional revenue in case of the introduction of credits for negative CO2 emissions. The valorisation of black liquor, a by-product of the pulp and paper industry, can also be achieved with calcium looping implementation. In this case, the purpose of calcium looping coupled with gasification is the capture of CO2 and H2 or electricity production. However, this route increases the cost of CO2 capture, which ranges between 48.8 and 57.1 €/tCO2. Instead of CO2 capture taking place afterward the gasification, these two stages can simultaneously occur in the same reactor, sorption-enhanced gasification. This research work found that H2 production from sorption-enhanced gasification of municipal solid waste is a feasible technology. However, the capture of CO2 leads to an increase in the production cost of H2, and the levelised cost of hydrogen increases from 2.7 €/kg (conventional gasification without CO2 capture) to 5.0 €/kg (sorption-enhanced gasification). This means that the cost associated with the CO2 capture is 114.9 €/tCO2. One way to improve the economic performance of this technology is the enhancement of H2 production, which can be achieved by using sorbents with better CO2 capture capacity and higher stability after several cycles. This would mean the sorbent would capture more CO2 per ton of sorbent. However, the replacement of limestone with another natural sorbent, dolomite, has shown no improvement in the techno-economic performance. On the other side, the use of doped limestone with seawater has shown an increase of 1.3 percental points in H2 production efficiency. Still, the performance superiority of doped limestone is not so clear in the economic assessment. Depending on the doped limestone price, the levelised cost of hydrogen ranged from 4.9 €/kg to 5.2 €/kg, which corresponds to a cost of CO2 avoided between 109.3 €/kg and 128.4 €/kg. Furthermore, this research work found that doped limestone would just be a good alternative to natural limestone, only if its price is below 42.6 €/t. The cost of CO2 avoided (117.7 €/tCO2) would reduce to a value lower than that for natural limestone (114.9 €/tCO2). Although sorption-enhanced gasification is still not competitive as steam-methane reforming or coal gasification, it can become in the future. Moreover, the recent forecasts of the CO2 emission pricing indicate that it will increase in the next decades, promoting the application of low-carbon technologies such as sorption-enhanced gasification. This work also found to date, there is no dominant CO2 capture technology. However, high-temperature solid looping cycles (calcium looping and chemical looping) seem to be an emerging technology with the potential to be implemented across energy-intensive industries. It was also identified that the lack of methodology and assumptions standardisation results in some thermodynamic and economic analysis discrepancies. These discrepancies cause uncertainty and, therefore, a delay in the technology deployment at a commercial scale. To date, there is no dominant CO2 capture technology. |
| Exploitation Route | The results support the decarbonisation of pulp and paper industry, which can use this information as a preliminary study. The results provide a better understanding of the negative emissions and credits associated with them. These will help the policy decision-makers to deliver decarbonisation pathways. The researchers working in the field of carbon capture are provided with more data/understanding, which will aid them to choose the direction of their research. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education,Energy,Environment,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology |