Quarterly Progress Report Phase 3: Clean and Secure Energy from Coal - October 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011

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Publication Type report
School or College University of Utah
Author Smith, Philip J.
Title Quarterly Progress Report Phase 3: Clean and Secure Energy from Coal - October 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011
Date 2012-02-16
Description The University of Utah is pursuing research to utilize the vast energy stored in our domestic coal resources and to do so in a manner that will capture CO2 from combustion from stationary power generation. The research is organized around the theme of validation and uncertainty quantification through tightly coupled simulation and experimental designs and through the integration of legal, environment, economics and policy issues. The results of the research will be embodied in the computer simulation tools which predict performance with quantified uncertainty; thus transferring the results of the research to practitioners to predict the effect of energy alternatives using these technologies for their specific future application. A summary of highlights from the last quarter follows. During this quarter, the Oxycoal Team revised the Phase 2 topical report and submitted it. The simulation efforts focused on performing the validation and uncertainty quantification study, including 13 simulations and the development of a surrogate model to predict the flame stand-off distance as a function of the selected three parameters. The simulated standoff distance results show a high sensitivity to wall temperature but no sensitivity to PO2. Experimental efforts included: (1) the analysis of results from the directed oxygen injection in the oxyfuel combustor (OFC); (2) further development and testing of the particle shadow velocimetry (PSV) technique for simultaneous measurement of particle shape, size and velocity measurements in pulverized coal in the laboratory-scale burner and OFC; (3) analysis of char surface area from the single-particle oxy-coal combustion experiments; and (4) determination of fundamental reaction kinetics (calcination and carbonation) and recovery utilization of limestone during the looping system using a TGA Q600. The gasification Team's simulation efforts focused on adding improved radiation functionality, including the capabilities of reflections, wall emission, and surface fluxes and verification testing. Work on the entrained-flow gasifier included testing two new injectors: a co-axial, annular two-stream injector as well as a co-axial, notched two-stream injector. A high-speed camera was used to assess the quality of atomization when spraying into open atmosphere. In addition, design of the probe has been completed, and the probe is currently being manufactured. In this quarter, the CLC Team continued to evaluate experimental data on CLOU for Mexican petcoke particles, which was validated using the mathematical model for the process. The kinetic rate constants for CuO reduction and carbon oxidation were re-evaluated, taking into account the temperature variations. They also continued implementing the Direct Quadrature Method of Moments (DQMOM) methodology into Star-CCM+ and to perform a verification study of a well-known simple solution to establish the performance of the CFD software with the DQMOM coupling. The experimental efforts focused on determining kinetic rate laws for the oxidation and reduction for CLOU reactions without the presence of fuel using a packed bed approach. In addition, the CuO/Cu2O system deposited on a new β-SiC support was investigated. After heat treatment for 8 days, the resulting material was used as support for the CuO. The sample was looped successfully. The UCTT Team continued porosity and mass loss experiments for large coal cores, and a tar collection system for use with the fixed-bed reactor has been designed and assembled. CO2 adsorption work included low-temperature and low-pressure isotherm measurements on three different coals that were thermally treated under different conditions. The results of the measurements show a relationship between CO2 adsorption and the heating rate during thermal treatment. In addition, during the past quarter we have continued to improve our computational representation of the rubblized coal bed geometry and assessing the available toolsets we use for creation of the geometry.
Publisher University of Utah
Subject domestic coal resources; CO2 capture; Oxy-Coal
Bibliographic Citation Smith, P. J. (2012). Quarterly Progress Report Phase 3: Clean and Secure Energy from Coal - October 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011. DE-NT0005015. University of Utah.
Relation Has Part DE-NT0005015
ARK ark:/87278/s6wh5p55
Setname ir_eua
ID 214376
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6wh5p55