Performance of Sorption-Enhanced Water-Gas Shift in Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle Using MgO-Based Sorbent

Global warming is a clear and present danger to world's public health, economy, and

environment. Coal is the most polluting of all fossil fuels and the largest single source of global

warming pollution in the world. Advanced coal-based power generation technologies, such as

Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) have been developed to improve the efficiency

of power generation and reduce the CO2 emission per until of energy produced. It has been

shown that the CO2

temperatures around 350°C, and the CO2 removal can shift WGS reaction to enhance hydrogen

production. Therefore, Sorbent Enhanced Water-Gas-Shift (SEWGS) can result in much higher

hydrogen production without lowering the temperature, leading to higher overall process

efficiency.

This paper presents the experimental results obtained with a highly reactive and attrition

resistant regenerable MgO-based sorbent which can simultaneously remove carbon dioxide

and enhance hydrogen production in a single packed bed reactor. It was found that the rate of

the WGS reaction is dependent on the MgO concentration, which has a significant catalytic

affect on promoting the WGS reaction in the temperature range of 300-430˚C. A kinetic model

was developed to fit the WGS reactivity curves obtained from the packed bed tests at different

operating conditions.

in the coal gas can be removed by regenerable MgO-based sorbents at