Oxy-Fuel

Oxy-fuel technology is currently undergoing rapid development although it is still considered pre-commercial due to the technical uncertainties. Commercial deployment of oxy-fuel technology requires cost and risk reduction. Compared to the other two CC technologies – PCC and IGCC, the economics of oxy-fuel is particularly affected by oxygen supply and the impacts of the CO₂ gas quality required. This is because

• The O2 supply for oxyfuel is greater than that for IGCC technology
• The quality of CO₂ passed from the power station to gas compression, and then to a transport by pipeline remains uncertain, and covers a greater range of impurities such as SOx, NOx, Ar, N2 and Hg than other CC options. This quality determines the need for costly operations for SOx and NOx removal in the power station, the impact of air leakage in the power station, the design of the compression operation to remove these and other impurities, and the ability to comply with gas quality regulations for pipeline transport and storage.

These issues provide a focus for part of the Oxy-pf program leading to future technical developments.

Reference:
Wall, T 2009, Scoping study on oxy-fuel combustion for the Australian National Low Emission Coal R&D (ANLECR&D) program.