The aim of this research is to simulate and analyse a power plant starting from a co-combustion of solid waste, biomass and methane equipped with CO2 Capture and Utilization units. The captured carbon dioxide will be then used in the same cycle for producing methane to be used in the plant and to be partially recirculated to the combustion chamber. The study will provide a complete energy, exergy, safety and economic analysis of the plant, varying, between the various operative conditions, the oxygen content of the combustion air, provided by the water electrolyser already used for the production of hydrogen for subsequent captured CO2 methanation using isothermal reactors, according to a power-to-gas approach. The CO2 capture technology will be gas/solid thermal swing adsorption and the thermodynamic and kinetic data of this process will derive from the mathematical modelling of the results provided by the experiments carried out by the research group. Different porous adsorbent materials will be developed, characterized and tested. The experimental tests will be initially performed on a gas mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, whereas in a second phase of the research, a model flue gas will be prepared in laboratory.
The innovative aspects of the proposal are:
1) the use of solid waste, biomass and on-site produced H2, synthetic natural gas (SNG) co-incineration and oxy-combustion coupled with CO2 addition for combustion control represents a topic of growing interest for various Companies working in the power generation sector and it has not been adequately studied in the literature, yet;
2) according to author¿s knowledge, the integration of power-to-gas technology and carbon capture and utilization for the complete decarbonization of a power generation plant is completely novel in the literature;
3) very few integrated process analyses are present in the literature including energy, exergy, economic and safety analyses.
Given the two main technological pillars of the time, i.e. waste reuse and decarbonization, the results of this three-years research are expected to provide a significant knowledge advancement on several topics (CCU/power-to-gas/power plant and co-incineration/oxy-combustion), all of great interest both in Europe and all over the World.