Chemical Looping Combustion 150 kW pilot unit at SINTEF

Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) is an oxy-fuel type of process without the need of an air separation unit. Instead, a metal oxide works as an oxygen carrier from the air to the fuel reactor. The metal-oxide oxygen carriers are mainly based on metals as Fe, Ni, Cu and Mn.Fuels for the CLC process may be gas, oil, coal or biomass just as in traditional combustion. The exhaust from the fuel reactor contains only CO₂ and H₂O and the separation can be done simply by condensation of the H₂O. Since no other gas separation steps are involved, CLC enables low energy requirements and low costs compared to most other CO₂ capture technologies.The facililty is a registered Research Infrastructure in EU ECCSEL.

Key objectives

Bring chemical looping combustion closer to commercialization by:

• developing new and optimized oxygen carriers and production methods
• validating performance and operability of the 150 kW CLC pilot unit

The 150 kW CLC pilot unit

• A double-loop circulating fluidised bed (CFB) reactor system
• Industrial applicability and scalability
• Flexibility with respect to oxygen carrier and fuel
• Extensive process control and safety system
• Cold flow model testing (scale 1 : 1) for concept validation
• Air reactor 6.0 m high, internal diameter φ230 mm
• Fuel reactor 6.7 m high (incl. lifter), internal diameter φ154 mm

Results from test campaign using CuO as oxygen carrier particles.

Øyvind LANGØRGEN, Inge SAANUM, Nils Erland L. HAUGEN. Chemical looping combustion of methane using a copper-based oxygen carrier in a 150 kW reactor system. 13th Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-13), 14 to 18 November 2016, Lausanne, Switzerland.