Studies in Advanced Oxy-combustion Technologies
type: CreativeWork
description: In 2013, approximately 87 percent of the total world energy came from combustion sources. While combustion is of critical significance, it poses serious issues. The rapid increase in energy consumption, primarily from increased fossil fuel use, has raised strong concerns over the current energy infrastructure, the emissions of particulate matter, CO, SO2, and NOx, as well as global warming due to the emission of CO2. Improving combustion efficiency and reducing combustion emissions are essential. This dissertation focuses on two areas: (1) Computational fluid dynamics simulations of a novel burner design for a new oxy-fuel technology with relatively high efficiency and low emissions, and (2) numerical studies of flame structure and soot inception, interpreted in the carbon-to-oxygen atom ratio space for laminar diffusion flames. Part I. Oxy-fuel combustion is considered a promising technology for carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS). One of the primary limitations on full-scale implementation of this technology is the significant increase in the cost of electricity due to a large reduction in plant efficiency and high capital costs. The fact that the CO2 captured must ultimately be pressurized for geo-sequestration or Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) enables pressurized oxy-combustion to be implemented at no net pumping cost because the energy to pump oxygen is comparable to that to pump CO2. At higher pressure the latent heat of condensation of the moisture in the flue gas can be utilized in the Rankine cycle, increasing the plant efficiency. A new pressurized oxy-combustion technology, namely staged, pressurized oxy-combustion (SPOC) has been developed in which the flue gas recycle is minimized by means of fuel-staged combustion. As determined through ASPEN Plus modeling, this process increases the net plant efficiency by more than 5 percentage points, compared to first-generation oxy-combustion plants. In the SPOC process, pulverized coal is combusted at hi…
abstract: In 2013, approximately 87 percent of the total world energy came from combustion sources. While combustion is of critical significance, it poses serious issues. The rapid increase in energy consumption, primarily from increased fossil fuel use, has raised strong concerns over the current energy infrastructure, the emissions of particulate matter, CO, SO2, and NOx, as well as global warming due to the emission of CO2. Improving combustion efficiency and reducing combustion emissions are essential. This dissertation focuses on two areas: (1) Computational fluid dynamics simulations of a novel burner design for a new oxy-fuel technology with relatively high efficiency and low emissions, and (2) numerical studies of flame structure and soot inception, interpreted in the carbon-to-oxygen atom ratio space for laminar diffusion flames. Part I. Oxy-fuel combustion is considered a promising technology for carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS). One of the primary limitations on full-scale implementation of this technology is the significant increase in the cost of electricity due to a large reduction in plant efficiency and high capital costs. The fact that the CO2 captured must ultimately be pressurized for geo-sequestration or Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) enables pressurized oxy-combustion to be implemented at no net pumping cost because the energy to pump oxygen is comparable to that to pump CO2. At higher pressure the latent heat of condensation of the moisture in the flue gas can be utilized in the Rankine cycle, increasing the plant efficiency. A new pressurized oxy-combustion technology, namely staged, pressurized oxy-combustion (SPOC) has been developed in which the flue gas recycle is minimized by means of fuel-staged combustion. As determined through ASPEN Plus modeling, this process increases the net plant efficiency by more than 5 percentage points, compared to first-generation oxy-combustion plants. In the SPOC process, pulverized coal is combusted at hi…
author: Xia, Fei
language: English (en)
keywords: computational fluid dynamics, fuel-staged combustion, oxy-combustion, pressurized combustion, radiative trapping, recycle minimization, Engineering
date published: 2014-12-15T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T06:13:14Z
provider: Washington University in St. Louis
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Washington University in St. Louis

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.7936/K75T3HMG