Dynamic Analysis of an O2 Separating Membrane Reactor for CO2-Emission-Free Power Processes

The need to reduce CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel based
power production creates the need for new power plant solutions where the CO2 is captured and stored or reused. Oxygen Transfer Membrane (OTM) is the key component of oxy-fuel combustion processes as pure oxygen is usually required to process reactions (e.g. Natural Gas Combined cycle NGCC, Pulverised Coal-fired power plants PC-plants, Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle IGCC). The transfer of oxygen across such OTM is limited by a
number of processes, such as surface exchange and ambipolar diffusion through mixed-conducting gas separation layer. This paper shows a mathematical model of an oxygen transfer membrane incorporated into OTM reactor (OTM reactor consists of High Temperature Heat Exchanger and OTM), where transient behavior takes place. The modeling of the OTM reactor has been carried out to show the importance of optimizing OTM parameters
(temperatures, oxygen partial pressures, oxygen flux) and
reactor design that enables a high oxygen transfer for optimum performance of future power cycles with CO2 capture. All modeling work was carried out in the modeling language Modelica, which is an open standard for equation-based, object-oriented modeling of physical systems. The OTM reactor model has been built using the CombiPlant Library, a modeling library for combined
cycle power plants which is under development.