Performance Analysis of Evaporative Biomass Air Turbine Cycle With Gasification for Topping Combustion

Abstract

This paper investigates the performance of a new power cycle, a so called Evaporative Biomass Air Turbine (EvGT-BAT) cycle with gasification for topping combustion. The process integrates an externally fired gas turbine (EFGT), an evaporative gas turbine (EvGT) and biomass gasification. Through such integration, the system may provide the potential for adapting features from different advanced solid-fuel based power generation technologies, e.g. externally fired gas turbine, integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) and fluidized bed combustion, thus improving the system performance and reducing the technical difficulties. In the paper, the features of the EvGT-BAT cycle have been addressed. The thermal efficiencies for different integrations of the gasification for topping combustion and the heat recovery have been analyzed. By drying the biomass feedstock, the thermal efficiency of the EvGT-BAT cycle can be increased by more than 3 percentage points. The impact of the outlet air temperature of the high temperature heat exchanger has also been studied in the present system. Finally, the size of the gasifier for topping combustion has been compared with the one in IGCC, which illustrates that the gasifier of the studied system can be much smaller compared to IGCC. The results of the study will be useful for the future engineering development of advanced solid fuel power generation technologies.

Externally fired gas turbine technology: A review

“…Pantaleo et al [66] studied the effect of natural gas co-firing with biomass from thermo-economic point of view in a 100 kW e CHP-EFGT system. A biomass air turbine (BAT) with additional biomass topping combustor to increase TIT in EFGT cycle was investigated in a combined cycle configuration [67] and evaporative gas turbine configuration [68].…”

“…The use of steam injection in biomass fueled EFGT was proposed by Larson and Williams [129]. The integration of biomass gasification and combustion with evaporative EFGT to increase TIT was studied by Wolf et al [68]. Large scale industrial gas turbine were studied in this model and the cycle efficiency was in the range of 41-44%.…”

Biomass fired hot air gas turbine with fluidized bed combustion

“…Focused on thermodynamic and process simulation, work was done e.g. at the KTH, Stockholm by Wolf et al [17] for a new top cycle, in Rostock at the IEUT by Hansen [18,19] for a 100 kWel system based on combustion and by Gangulya and Sarkara [20] for an HGT with integrated gasifier. Traverso Table 1 Small-scale power production based on biomass (þ enough, B medium, À fail).…”

Innovative combined heat and power system based on a double shaft intercooled externally fired gas cycle

“…Some of these studies [15][16][17] have dealt with methods to increase the efficiency both in simple cycle and in combined cycle configurations, investigating the use of metallic as well as ceramic materials for high temperature heat exchangers. Another configuration capable of enhancing the power output and efficiency of the EFGT, by increasing the mass flow through the turbine, is the so called externally fired humid air turbine (EFHAT), which consists of an integration between the externally fired cycle with the evaporative gas turbine cycle [14,18,19]. Other arrangements of EFGT cycles exploit the available thermal power of the exhaust gases for biomass pre-drying processes [20,21], and even the use of organic waste fuels, like sewage sludge and poultry wastes, has been investigated [22].…”