Rotary Bed Reactor for Chemical-Looping Combustion with Carbon Capture. Part 2: Base Case and Sensitivity Analysis

Part 1 (10.1021/ef3014103) of this series describes a new rotary reactor for gas-fueled chemical-looping combustion (CLC), in which, a solid wheel with microchannels rotates between the reducing and oxidizing streams. The oxygen carrier (OC) coated on the surfaces of the channels periodically adsorbs oxygen from air and releases it to oxidize the fuel. A one-dimensional model is also developed in part 1 (10.1021/ef3014103). This paper presents the simulation results based on the base-case design parameters. The results indicate that both the fuel conversion efficiency and the carbon separation efficiency are close to unity. Because of the relatively low reduction rate of copper oxide, fuel conversion occurs gradually from the inlet to the exit. A total of 99.9% of the fuel is converted within 75% of the channel, leading to 25% redundant length near the exit, to ensure robustness. In the air sector, the OC is rapidly regenerated while consuming a large amount of oxygen from air. Velocity fluctuations are observed during the transition between sectors because of the complete reactions of OCs. The gas temperature increases monotonically from 823 to 1315 K, which is mainly determined by the solid temperature, whose variations with time are limited within 20 K. The overall energy in the solid phase is balanced between the reaction heat release, conduction, and convective cooling. In the sensitivity analysis, important input parameters are identified and varied around their base-case values. The resulting changes in the model-predicted performance revealed that the most important parameters are the reduction kinetics, the operating pressure, and the feed stream temperatures. © 2012 American Chemical Society.