Oxy Fuel Combustion

Fossil fuels account for nearly 80% of total U.S. energy supplies and nearly 90% of worldwide energy supplies. There is a growing concern that the use of fossil fuels and the associated carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to global warming. Oxy-coal combustion is a promising technology to address this issue.

An advanced oxy-fuel combustion power cycle that utilizes a pressurized coal combustor has been proposed. Coal is combusted in an environment of pure oxygen and recycled flue gases yielding flue gases of predominantly carbon dioxide and water under high pressure which eases carbon dioxide capture and sequestration. A system thermodynamic study shows that the flue gas thermal energy recovery by water condensation at elevated pressure enables the pressurized oxy-fuel system to achieve higher efficiency. This research project will also develop comprehensive modeling tools in the Computational Fluid Dynamics framework to design an advanced combustor for a clean, stable and highly efficient energy production.