Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 2135–2141

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Energy Conversion and Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

Modelling, comparison and operation experiences of entrained flow gasifier

Christian Kunze ⇑, Hartmut Spliethoff
Institute for Energy Systems, TU München, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper a generic entrained flow gasifier is modelled in Aspen Plus using different designs e.g. wet/
Received 18 November 2009 dry feed as well as wet and dry quench. The models are verified with the corresponding data from real
Received in revised form 27 October 2010 existing plants or reference data from the literature. All of them are found to reproduce the raw gas com-
Accepted 30 October 2010
position as well as synthesis gas yield with acceptable deviation.
The comparison of the selected designs revealed the poor performance of the wet feed compared to the
dry design. The corresponding cold gas efficiency of 72.1% is much lower than the 83% for the dry feed
Keywords:
cases. Furthermore the specific synthesis gas production is 12% lower at 12% higher oxygen demand.
Gasification
IGCC
On the other hand, the power demand for the gasification island is found to be 60–70% lower than in
Aspen Plus the dry feed case. Therefore the wet feed design is recommended only in case of high pressure gasifica-
Modelling tion.
Exergy During, an exergy analysis of the different raw gas cooling concepts the disadvantage of the direct
quench became obvious. Combinations of gas quench and heat recovery results in exergy losses of
52.4%. The heat recovery design showed much better exergy efficiency of 63.8%. Especially the wet
quench design showed high looses and is therefore restricted to applications incorporating a down
stream shift unit.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction a model approach is described in this paper based on restricted

equilibrium and published literature reference data.
The worldwide gasification capacity still continues to expand.
The majority of the plants use entrained flow gasifier due to their
tar free product gas and high synthesis gas yield as well as output.
2. Main
Therefore they are used for both synthesis applications as well as
power plants. Despite the numerous designs and suppliers a signif-
2.1. Technology review
icant fraction of the planed facilities incorporate the gasification
technology from Shell, GE Energy and Siemens Fuel Gasification.
The gasification island consists usually of the coal preparation
Since the fields of application are manifold and the technology
and transportation system, the gasifier chamber, the slag removal
very complex a preliminary simulation of the planed concept is
unit and a raw gas cooling section. The coal, oxygen and if required
essential to find the optimum gasification plant configuration.
a moderator (steam) as well as support fuel (methane) is fed to the
For the modelling of complex processes capable simulation soft-
burner which can be situated at the top or bottom of the gasifier. A
ware such as Aspen Plus is necessary. This software tool provides
part of the pulverised coal is burnt with oxygen thereby producing
an extensive property data bank for most substances as well as
the required heat for the endothermic gasification reaction. Due to
implemented thermodynamic models.
the high temperatures of up to 1600 °C the gas is mostly free of
Even numerous gasification plant simulations were published, a
higher hydrocarbons or tars. Furthermore the temperature exceeds
detailed description of the simulation of the gasification process
the melting point of the ash which leads to the removal as slag. To
and comparison regarding their energetic, exergetic as well as
secure the thermal stability of the gasifier itself, different concepts
operation performance has not been among them. Therefore the
such as membrane walls (Shell), cooling screens (Siemens) or
simulation of an entrained flow gasifier in Aspen Plus is described
refractory lining (GE) are used. While the first two systems are
and different industrial available plant designs are compared. Since
cooled by water to produce steam the refractory works just as an
no kinetic data for the gasification process is available in the work
insulator. For better understanding of the technology the gasifiers
are shown in Fig. 1. It should be mentioned that the Shell and the
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 089 289 16277; fax: +49 289 16271. PRENFLO gasifier design were jointly invented, are similar and will
E-mail address: kunze@es.mw.tum.de (C. Kunze). be handled as one process in this work.

0196-8904/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2010.10.049
2136 C. Kunze, H. Spliethoff / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 2135–2141
Fig. 1. Schematics of the selected types of gasifier [1,2].
There are basically two significant types of variation of the gas-
ification island design: the way the feed is pressurised and the way
the hot raw gas is cooled for gas processing. Using the dry feed sys-
tem the coal is milled in bowl mills and dried with exhaust from a
gas burner to usually 2 wt.% moisture. The coal powder is pressur-
ised in a look hopper system (Fig. 2) before it is transported pneu-
matically to the gasifier. The transportation gas is either N2 from
the air separation unit or CO2. For pressurisation, high pressure
gas (20 bar above the gasifier level) is used. Afterwards the coal
is transported by inert gas (oxygen fraction below 2 vol.%) with a
Fig. 2. Look hopper system [2,3].
density of 250–450 kg/m3 and approximately 2–5 bar overpressure
to the gasifier.
Gas demand:
V oc ¼ y ð1=1  1=1t Þ ð1Þ
mgas ¼ V oc =1g ð2Þ
where y is the filling factor, 1 the density (bulk or transport), 1t the den-
sity (true coal density), 1g the density gas (operating condition), Voc the
volume flow (operating condition) and mgas is the mass flow gas.
In order to calculate the required gas stream for both the com-
pression as well as transportation, several parameters have to be
considered. As shown in Fig. 2, the coal vessels are not filled com-
pletely. Therefore the filling factor is a measure for the dead vol-
ume which needs to be compressed but contains no coal. Further
the pore volume as well as the volume between the particles needs
to be filled with gas. Therefore Eq. (1) considers the true and bulk
density of the coal for the calculation of the necessary volume
stream. It should be mentioned that this volume stream is under
operating conditions. The resulting gas stream after compression
is released to the atmosphere or cycled back after a dedusting unit.
The transport media is fed along with the coal to the gasification
chamber. In case of wet feeding system, the coal is not dried but
milled directly with recycled water and additives (fluxing agent,
pH adjustments) in rod mills. The fluid is mixed properly in agita-
tor tanks. Afterwards the suspension with 60–70% solid concentra-
tion is pumped via membrane pumps to the required pressure,
theoretically up to 200 bar [4,5]. The high water entry will shift
the raw gas composition to higher H2 fractions but requires more
oxygen due to the additional heat of evaporation.
Regarding the quench system, the hot raw gas cannot be used
for heat recovery since the entrained particles are still molten or
at least sticky and the temperatures are too high for simple heat
exchangers. Therefore the Shell concept recycles cold gas after
the particle filter to cool the raw gas to approximately 900 °C
which ensures dry ash [1]. The gas is cooled via heat exchangers
thereby producing high and intermediate pressure steam. Another
possibility is the use of a radiant raw gas cooler as in the GE design.
The gas is first cooled to about 700 °C thereby producing steam
 C. Kunze, H. Spliethoff / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 2135–2141
based on radiation heat transfer. After the slag is solidified and re-
moved the gas is further cooled in convective coolers for additional
steam production. The minimum temperature for both designs is
set by the formation of ammonia salts and therefore limited to
240 °C [1].
Another concept is just to quench the hot gas with water to
approximately 200 °C. In this way all the sensible heat of the gas
is used directly to saturate the gas with steam. Since the water
quench removes next to the solidified slag also water soluble com-
ponents such as NH3, HCl the temperature can be lowered to
approximately 200 °C. Part of the excess water is recycled and
the rest withdrawn to avoid accumulation. For better understand-
ing the different raw gas cooling methods described above are
shown in Fig. 3.
2.2. Operation experiences
Gasifiers using dry feed design are more complex since bulky
equipment is required as well as high and medium pressure gas.
Significant gas compression makes the process also expensive at
higher system pressures and limits the process to pressures below
50 bar. On the other hand the cold gas efficiency is high and the
oxygen consumption low. Furthermore the system worked prop-
erly in the IGCC demonstration plants in Puertollano and Bugge-
num [1]. However, local climatic conditions needs to be
considered since sticky coal increases the milling effort and might
cause plugging, while dryness might require additional seals to re-
duce the dust formation [1].
The wet compression is of simpler design and economical
favourable especially at higher pressures. On the other hand the
main disadvantage of the wet feed is the erosive and corrosive nat-
ure of the coal slurry. Therefore coatings and high resistant steel
have to be used all along the slurry path. However, the life time
of high stressed parts such as the pump and rods will be low and
can be expected in the range of a few months. Further experiences
from the Tampa IGCC demonstration plant revealed also a dramatic
impact on the burner life time which decreased to approximately
3 month [5]. Another disadvantage is that this feeding design is
not suited for low rank coals due to the already high water entry.
According to the disadvantages mentioned above the GE Energy
gasifier with wet feed showed very low availability. The main
reason is the low life time of the burner. Another important issue
experienced is the low carbon conversion. Instead of the expected
98% only between 90% and 95% was achieved which caused in-
creased effort regarding the slag handling and recycle of the fly ash
[4]. Since the gasifier uses only refractory inside the gasification
chamber the material needs to be renewed every 2 years. Even the
Fig. 3. Schematics of the selected gas cooling designs.
2137
gasifier is of cheap design the high maintenance demand will require
a redundant gasifier in order to reach an availability of 90%.
The operation experiences of the Shell gasifier in the demonstra-
tion facility in Buggenum showed reliable operation with high bur-
ner as well as membrane wall life time. By using heat exchanger in
the raw gas path about 10–20% of the initial fuel heating value can
be recovered as steam. The main problem is the formation of depos-
its and fouling as well as the corresponding corrosion due to sticky
ash. Since the ash behaviour depends on the fuel characteristics
and the gasification conditions the use of heat recovery devices in-
creases the system complexity and reduces the flexibility of the
plant. Since the raw gas contains numerous impurities the heat
recovery restricts high steam temperatures and pressures. For that
reason the material temperatures should not exceed 500–600 °C.
Further the gas should not be cooled below the range of 240 °C in or-
der to avoid the formation of ammonium chloride [4].
In case of a wet quench the gas needs to be cooled below this
temperature in order to remove these components. Further this
arrangement is easier and cheaper to realise since the expensive
heat exchanger, gas compressor, steam boilers as well as soot
blowers are needless. Therefore this quench type improves also
the availability and the flexibility of the gasification facility. The
reason is the independence from the ash properties regarding foul-
ing and corrosion.
2.3. Modelling
The first step of modelling gasification technology is to consider
the important species which occur during the process. Since the
feed (coal or biomass) consists of complex structured macromole-
cules, Aspen Plus cannot handle these components directly neither
in chemical nor phase equilibrium. Therefore the feed needs to be
decomposed in reactive compounds. This is done in a ‘‘yield rector’’
in which the feed is characterised by the immediate- and elemen-
tary analysis as well as the heating value and converted to the cor-
responding composition.
Regarding the gas species the typical gasification raw gas of an
entrained flow gasifier contains mostly of H2, CO, N2, H2O and CO2.
Furthermore a number of minor species and trace elements occur
such as CH4, H2S, COS, HCl, HCN, NH3, CS2, mercaptanes, as well
as metals (Hg, Se) and alkali components. Since the amounts of
the last four species are very small they are not considered in the
simulation to improve the convergence behaviour of the model.
Since all gasifier are auto-thermal they need oxygen and in case
of dry feed probably also additional steam.
After the components are defined, the property method of the
simulation has to be chosen. From the numerous choices provided
2138 C. Kunze, H. Spliethoff / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 2135–2141

by Aspen Plus the RK-Soave Method was used for the simulation ex- Table 2
cept in case of the water quench where the NRTL-RK Method is more Overview of simulation assumptions for verification.

suitable due to dissociation and solubility of some species. Next to Parameter Concept 1 Concept 2 Concept 3
the Yield reactor the gasifier core consists of a Gibbs reactor in which Feed Dry Dry Wet
the decomposed feed reacts with the oxygen and if required addi- Chamber Membrane wall Cooling screen Refractory
tional steam according to the implemented reactions summarised Quench Gas/HRSG Water HRSG
in Table 1. Further the fuel transportation stream as well as some Verification source [1,9,10] [2,8] [4,6,11]
Pressure 25 bar 30 bar 32 bar
methane as support fuel for the burner is added to the reactor. Temperature 1500 °C 1450 °C 1400 °C
Further the reactor allows setting a fixed pressure and temper-
Coal
ature. For IGCC applications about 30 bar and 1500 °C are typical C (wt.%) 64.4 66.51 63.75
values for current gasifier. Due to these high temperatures the con- H (wt.%) 3.05 3.78 4.5
sideration of equilibrium is suitable for most reactions. However, O (wt.%) 3.56 5.47 6.88
in order to adjust the gas composition slightly, the Gibbs reactor al- N (wt.%) 1.49 1.56 1.25
S (wt.%) 3.49 0.52 2.51
lows the so called approach temperatures for each of the imple-
Cl (wt.%) 0.02 0.01 0.29
mented reactions. Fixed carbon (wt.%) 58.71 54.95 44.19
In this way, one can simulate deviation from the equilibrium. Volatiles (wt.%) 17.3 22.90 34.99
Since the gasifier leaves some carbon un-reacted the corresponding Moisture (wt.%) 1.50 8.00 11.12
fraction has to be defined as inert material. Aspen Plus handles the Ash (wt.%) 22.49 14.15 9.7
LHV (MJ/kg) 27.43 25.17 25.85
ash also as solid matter. The melting energy (1 kJ/kg ash) needs to
Coal flow (t/h) 2400 2000 3020
be considered. The values for the dry feed result from the compres- O2/C ratio (mol) 0.45 0.44 0.46
sion of the gas for pressurisation and transportation. An isentropic Oxygen purity 85% 98% 95%
efficiency of 85% and intercooling is considered for the pressurisa- Steam/C ratio (mol) 0.11 0.09 –
Transport (kg/kg coal) N2  0.21 CO2  0.23 H2O  0.33
tion compressors. In case of the wet feed a solid concentration of
Carbon conversion 98.5% 98.5% 95%
65% and an isentropic pump efficiency of 80% is considered. As Cooling/Q loss 0.8% 1.4% 0.3%
mentioned previously, three different gas cooling designs are sim-
ulated: a full water quench, a cold gas quench with heat recovery
In case of concepts 1 and 3 intermediate pressure steam is pro-
and a full heat recovery. The water quench is simulated as a water
duced thereby cooling the raw gas to 250 °C while in case 2 the gas
loop including a pump, and a hydro cyclone for particle removal.
is quenched with water to 200 °C. The water quench uses 150 °C
Part of the water is withdrawn from the cycle to avoid accumula-
pre-heated water and excess water of approximately 20%. For bet-
tion of soluble elements. Furthermore dissolved acid gases such as
ter understanding of the selected concepts Fig. 4 provides a de-
CO2 and H2S as well as HCl reduce the pH of the water. In order to
tailed overview.
avoid corrosion sodium hydroxide solution is added. Both values
are regulated by an implemented user routine which keeps the
chlorine level and the pH of the water below 2000 ppm and at 3. Results and discussion
pH 7, respectively. Regarding the gas quench a similar user routine
recycles part of the cold dedusted raw gas in order to reach a tem- 3.1. Verification
perature of the raw gas upstream the heat exchanger of 850 °C.
For evaluation of the gasifier performance the models are veri- As shown in Table 3, all gasifier models are able to reproduce
fied with data from real existing plants and literature references. the raw gas composition of the reference data with acceptable
During verification process the models are adjusted slightly in or- accuracy. The main reason for the deviation is the lack of published
der to match with the reference data. The input data and simula- data and material balances of the selected gasifier. Therefore some
tion assumptions are summarised in Table 2. assumptions and adjustments had to be made in order to reach the
After the verification process, the different gasifier designs are required gas compositions. Furthermore all simulation models
compared regarding their performance and energy requirements. needed an adjustment of the equilibrium of the homogeneous
Therefore all concepts are simulated based on the same boundary water gas shift reaction (Eq. (3) in Table 1) for correct reproduction
conditions as described in the following section. of the raw gas composition.
For this study all concepts utilised the hard coal used in the ver- Concept one showed the best agreement due to the most com-
ification of concept 2. In case of dry feed the coal is dried to 2 wt.% plete data base. Even the recycle gas compressor showed the men-
moisture. All models used a coal input of 540 MWth and operate at tioned power demand of approximately 1.5 MW.
30 bar. Furthermore, 98% pure oxygen and pure N2 for coal trans- The gas yield is in the range of 2090 N m3/t coal (daf) mention
portation are used. The coal enters the gasifier with 100 °C at a in the literature [11] for a dry feed and quench gasification process.
density of 400 kg/m3 and 70% (wet feed), respectively. The oxygen demand is approximately 10% higher than a published
value which is basically due to the high ash content of the coal and
the recycle of fly ash.
The second concept showed also a very low deviation regard-
Table 1
Implemented reactions in the Gibbs reactor [7].
ing the raw gas composition. However, the minor species are
neglected due to lack in references data. The synthesis gas yield
No. Reaction DHR,0 (kJ/mol)
is approximately 7% higher than in concept one due to the better
1 C + O ? CO2 406.3 coal quality. Accordingly the oxygen demand is closer to the
2 C + CO2 M 2CO +159.6 amount accepted for dry feed entrained flow gasifier.
3 CO + 3H2 M CH4 + H2O 206.2
4 CO + H2O M H2 + CO2 41.1
According to Supp [11], a wet feed entrained flow gasifier has a
5 H2 + S M H2S 20.5 synthesis gas yield of roughly 1970 N m3/t of daf coal. The simula-
6 CO + S M COS 27.9 tion provides a yield of 1965 N m3/t daf coal and matches the liter-
7 Cl2 + H2 M 2HCl 184.6 ature data very well. Further, the source mentioned an oxygen
8 N2 + 3H2 M 2NH3 91.9
demand of approximately 0.34 N m3 O2 per N m3 (CO + H2). In the
9 CO + NH3 M HCN + H2O +49.8
verification model a ratio of 0.35 can be calculated which is in com-
 C. Kunze, H. Spliethoff / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 2135–2141 2139

Fig. 4. Schematic of the simulated gasifier including their quench section.

Table 3
Results from the verification of the concepts.

Parameter Concept 1 Concept 2 Concept 3

Reference Simulation Reference Simulation Reference Simulation
Gas (vol.%)
H2 21.4 21.8 25.0 24.9 35.8 35.5
CO 59.3 59.4 70.3 70.4 49.3 49.1
CO2 2.8 2.5 3.1 3.2 12.3 12.3
N2 14.3 14.2 1.3 1.3 1.3 2.0
Ar 0.9 0.9 – –
S 1 1.2 – – 1 0.9
Others 0.3 0.13 0 0 0.3 0.2
LHV (MJ/kg) 9.89 9.95 11.84 11.81 11.31 10.97
(CO + H2) N m3/t coal (daf) 2054 2090 2209 – 1965 1970
O2 N m3/N m3 (CO + H2) 0.347 – 0.319 – 0.350 0.34

pliance with the reference. The model also reproduced the raw gas
composition with only slight deviation.
The simulation results confirmed that entrained flow gasifier
can be simulated in Aspen Plus without extensive kinetic data. Un-
like previously publications, the confirmation is based on a consid-
erable comparison with reference data from real existing plants. It
has been shown, that for the main species an error in the range of
5% can be expected and that the deviation from equilibrium has to
be taken into account, even at the high temperature used.
for compression is approximately 6% lower compared to nitrogen.
The reason is the lower isentropic exponent. The impact on heat
capacity of the hot raw gas is only minor.
Regarding the operation issues the CO2 is more difficult to han-
dle at high pressures due to the lower critical point. For applica-
tions involving a CO conversion the increased fraction will cause
additional efforts. However, the steam to CO ratio of the raw gas
was found to be almost similar for both transport gases. The higher

3.2. Impact of coal transport gas

In order to investigate the impact of the choice of coal trans-

port/purge gas, the dry gasifier in concept 2 has been simulated
with N2 and CO2. The corresponding mass flows have been calcu-
lated according to Eqs. (1) and (2) and the following assumptions:

Bulk density: 650 kg/m3 Feed pressure: 35 bar

Transport density: 400 kg/m3 Lock hopper pressure: 50 bar
Coal density: 1550 kg/m3 Filling factor: 90%

The changes in raw gas composition are visualised in Fig. 5. The

higher amount of CO2 causes a shift in hydrogen fraction towards
carbon monoxide. The reason is the favoured reaction 2 from
Table 1. The energy for the endo-thermal reaction is supplied by
additional oxidation of carbon which explains the slightly higher
oxygen demand. Due to the different density the mass flow is high-
er in case of CO2. Despite the higher mass flow, the power demand Fig. 5. Results for the CO2 case (1dry gas composition, 2O2 demand).
2140 C. Kunze, H. Spliethoff / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 2135–2141

CO fraction in case of CO2 will be compensated by increased water

saturation in the quench section.
Finally, in applications involving CO2 removal, using N2 as
transport media will have a negative effect since it dilutes the
raw gas and therefore reduces the CO2 partial pressure. Therefore
in case of such applications, CO2 is recommended especially since
it is available at no additional costs.

3.3. Impact of quench design

The main purpose of the raw gas cooling section is the efficient
reduction of gas temperature to a level suitable for the following
gas processing stages. Since the available technology requires
ambient or even lower temperatures the quench is state of the
art but principally not required for the gasification application
itself.
Another aspect, when utilising low rank coal, is the recovery
of the slag energy, especially the ash melting energy. Concept 2
uses the complete energy content of the ash due to direct evap-
oration of the quench water. In the radiant cooler design of con-
cept 3 the slag solidifies and also a significant portion of it’s
physically heat is used due to solid body radiation for steam
production. However, just the heat of the small fraction of the
particles which is entrained with the gas stream is fully used
in the convective heat exchanger. Therefore the overall recovery
is only 77.6%. Due to the counter current flow in concept 1 typ-
ically 80% of the slag is removed by gravity from the gas prior
the gas quench. Therefore almost nothing of the melting energy
and only a small fraction of the enthalpy can be used to heat up
the cold recycled gas and to produce steam in the following heat
exchanger. This results in the lowest slag energy recovery within
the selected designs of only 10.4%.
However, even if a considerable amount of the raw gas energy
Fig. 6. Exergy diagrams for the selected quench designs.
content is recovered the energy is shifted to a much lower temper-
ature level which results in significant exergy losses. Therefore an
exergy analysis of the selected quench designs was performed. The mended in case of downstream shift section or in applications
reference state was defined with 25 °C and 1.01325 bar. The corre- focused on cost reduction or variable operation regarding the coal
sponding Sankey diagrams are visualised in Fig. 6. quality.
The exergy efficiency of the system is defined as the exergy ben-
efit divided by input, both corrected by the transit exergy. This is
the fraction of the incoming exergy which flows throw the system 3.4. Concept comparison
without any interaction. In case of the quench system the chemical
exergy of the raw gas is almost unaffected by the system and The results from the concept comparison is summarised in
therefore defined as transit exergy. Furthermore, the exergy gain Table 4. Since all of them used the same coal and boundary condi-
in case of heat recovery in form of steam is not the steam exergy tions the results are comparable but differ significantly from the
but this exergy corrected by the exergy of the corresponding boiler verification results.
feed water. The consideration of just the exergy gain is important The results of the dry feed concepts are almost same regarding
since a simple exergy balance of all streams will lead to wrong re- the dry gas composition. The reasons are the only slight differences
sults. The reason is the significant impact of the chemical exergy in approach temperatures and the similar process conditions and
that overlaps the changes of the physical exergy fraction of the parameter. In case of the wet raw gas the impact of the wet quench
gas. Considering the definition mentioned above, quench concept saturates the water with the required minimum water content for
one showed an exergy gain is form of steam of 37.61 MW for an in- a possibly following CO conversion.
put of 495.95 MW, corrected by the chemical exergy fraction of The comparison of the lower heating value of the dry gases
416.19 MW. Hence, the resulting exergy efficiency is 47.2%. In case shows again the disadvantage of the wet feed and the low carbon
of quench concept 3 with only heat recovery, the exergy efficiency conversion of concept 3. The heating value is 20% lower compared
is 63.8%. Since there is no physical interaction of the raw gas to the dry feed concepts and only 72.1% of the initial coal heating
stream the exergy input is the difference of the corresponding in- value is transferred into the raw gas. On the other hand, the H2
and outgoing gas exergy. Therefore the efficiency drop of 16.6% re- to CO ratio is much higher which is preferable for applications
flects the impact of losses by gas mixing and recycling due to the including a downstream CO conversion. But the water content of
gas quench. the gas is still lower than the required minimum ratio for H2O/
In quench concept two, the hot raw gas is cooled directly by CO of 2. Therefore the wet feed is not sufficient to reach the CO
mixing it with low temperature water. Since there is no heat recov- conversion requirements. To avoid the additional steam demand,
ery included, the exergy benefit of the system is zero. Hence, the a water quench instead of the convective cooler is an option. An
exergy efficiency according to the definition mentioned above is additional simulation of such a gasifier design showed that the
zero. This reflects the significant impact of the water quench on gas can be saturated with sufficient water to reach a similar H2O/
systems performance. Therefore the wet quench is only recom- CO ratio as in concept 2.
 C. Kunze, H. Spliethoff / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 2135–2141 2141

Table 4 Further this concept needs no additional heat for coal drying.
Overview raw gas properties of the concept comparison. Since the concept includes full heat recovery there are also no
Parameter Concept 1 Concept 2 Concept 3 additional power demands for a quench system. For these reasons
Raw gas (vol.%) Dry Wet Dry Wet Dry Wet the last concept showed a decrease in specific power demand of
69% and 62% compared to concepts 1 and 2, respectively.
H2 27.6 27.58 27.52 11.83 33.32 26.90
CO 66.34 66.17 66.03 28.38 48.94 39.52
CO2 0.19 0.19 0.85 0.36 14.80 11.95 4. Conclusion
N2 4.68 4.67 4.51 1.94 2.11 1.70
Ar 0.56 0.56 0.57 0.25 0.62 0.50
In this work the modelling of different entrained flow gasifier
H2S 0.18 0.18 0.18 0.08 0.19 0.15
H2O 0 0.25 0 57.01 0 19.25 designs in Aspen Plus is demonstrated. The verification of the sim-
Others 0.4 0.4 0.34 0.15 0.02 0.03 ulated gasifier models showed good agreement with the reference
Mass flow (kg/s) 36.67 36.75 36.80 78.58 40.34 52.85 data. Deviations for the main gas species is found to be less than 5%
H2/CO ratio 0.416 0.417 0.681 and are mostly caused by assumptions made for some unknown
LHV (kJ/kg) 12,376 12,349 12,152 5691 10,095 8434
(CO + H2) N m3/t coal 2229 2211 1964
parameters. Even at the high gasification temperatures a deviation
(daf) had to be considered from the thermodynamic equilibrium. How-
O2 N m3/N m3 0.305 0.315 0.390 ever, both specific synthesis gas yield and cold gas efficiencies are
(CO + H2) found to be in good agreement with the published data of the cor-
Steam kg/N m3 0.034 0.035 –
responding gasifier.
(CO + H2)
CGE% 83.9 82.8 72.1 Considering the facts mentioned above, as well as the practical
Steam yield (MW) 78.9 8/ 117.2 issues and operation experiences discussed previously, it can be
(82.1) concluded that dry feed is superior to the wet feed regarding
Fraction Input% 14.6 1.5 18.6 equipment lifetime and process performance. The dry gasifier
(15.2)
reached a cold gas efficiency of approximately 83% whereas the
wet fed gasifier showed poor efficiency of 72%. Therefore the wet
feed is only recommended for synthesis applications where high
pressure and CO conversion is required.
For further comparison typical process parameter were calcu- The choice of transportation/purge gas in case of very high pres-
lated for all concepts. As shown in Table 4 the specific synthesis sures and without CO2 separation N2 might be preferable. For
gas production per kg of coal in concept 3 is roughly 12% lower applications at moderate pressure and including CO conversion,
compared to the concepts with dry feed. Further the specific oxy- CO2 is recommended.
gen demand per mole carbon is roughly 12% higher due to the Furthermore, the quench analysis revealed that the wet quench
wet feed. Both results are in conjunction with experiences from lit- design is recommended only for shift applications due to the high
erature Ref. [4]. exergy loss. In plants without shift section the HRSG design is the
The simulation results showed also that in case of waste heat superior option regarding the exergetic efficiency.
recovery between 14.6% and 18.6% of the coal input can be recov- However, the cold gas quench in combination with the counter
ered in form of steam. The higher value in case of concept 3 results current flow in the gasifier chamber results in significant energy
from better use of the particle melting energy and physical heat as losses in form of slag, especially when utilising low rank coal.
well as the already high water content of the raw gas.
In case of concept 2 the steam production is limited to the cool- Acknowledgements
ing screen. However, considering the amount of water vaporised in
the water quench, 15.2% of the initial coal energy is directly This work is part of a Project supported by Federal ministry of
recovered. Economics and Technology and industry partners (E.ON, RWE,
Regarding the power demand of the simulated concepts the sys- EnBW, Vattenfall and Siemens Fuel Gasification) under the Con-
tem with the gas quench showed the highest values (Fig. 7). Due to tract Number 0327773A. The author would like to thank the all
the reduced compression energy of the wet feed system concept 3 Project partners and contributor for their valuable input and dis-
had a significant lower demand for compression energy. cussions, especially Mr. Hannemann, Dr. Schingnitz, Dr. Riedl and
Mr. Garcia-Pena. Furthermore, special thanks to the TUM Graduate
School.

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Fig. 7. Auxiliary power demand of the selected concept.