Solid Circulation and Reduction Characteristic of Mass Produced Particles in a 0.5 Mwth Chemical Looping Combustion System

In Korea, KIER(Korean Institute of Energy Research) has been doing research on chemical looping combustion technology since 2000 and KIER and KEPCO RI(Korea Electric Power Research Institute) started a collaborative research from 2006 to develop chemical looping combustion process and oxygen carriers, respectively. We started new research project to develop a 0.5 MWth pressurized chemical looping combustor from 2015. In this project, our target is development of pressurized chemical looping combustor up to 5 bar-abs and achievement of high CO₂ selectivity (> 98%) using natural gas and syngas as fuels. Recently we have finished the installation of the 0.5 MWth chemical looping combustor. In this study, continuous solid circulation test at high temperature and high pressure conditions and batch type reduction-oxidation tests were performed to check feasibility of a 0.5 MWth chemical looping combustion system. Pressure drop profiles were maintained stable during continuous solid circulation up to 16 hours. Therefore, we could conclude that the solid circulation between an air reactor and a fuel reactor could be smooth and stable. The measured fuel conversion and CO₂ selectivity were high enough even at high capacity and even after cyclic tests. Therefore, we could expect high reactivity of oxygen carrier at real operation condition.