Analysis of post-combustion CO2 capture from natural gas power plants using CFD and process co-simulation

The use of natural gas as a fuel for electricity production is expected to gradually increase in the next decades. Since it is acknowledged that large CO2 emission cuts should be achieved in the near future, it seems plausible that these systems may have to be coupled to CO2 capture schemes. This research project focuses on combining computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and process simulation tools to study in detail the performance of an amine capture post-combustion plant coupled to a natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plant using the synergetic combination between Ansys Fluent and Aspen Hysys/gCCS (gPROMS) modelling tools. The idea is to replace the typical absorber and stripper blocks present in the process simulation flowsheet by more detail-designed units built using CFD tools. This will allow for a more accurate description of the system and better characterization of the performance of the key units of the capture process. Several NGCC variants will be studied and analyzed following this procedure, including conventional NGCC plants and those incorporating exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and selective exhaust gas recirculation (S-EGR) options. This is part of research activities that include virtual reality power industry plant simulation.