美国空气化工产品公司(NYSE:and the ElectricPower Research Institute, Inc. (EPRI) today announced the signing of an agreement which will support Air Products' ion transport membrane (ITM) development for use in integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC), oxyfuel combustion, and other advanced power generation systems.
An EPRI electric industry collaborative will help advance Air Products' on-going ITM project with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to develop this new oxygen production technology, which could significantly increase the efficiency and reduce the costs of advanced coal-fired power plants, both with and without carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage systems. EPRI's global collaborative efforts will focus on power industry-relevant design cases and features, and specific tests to help advance the overall ITM program toward successful deployment in the power industry.
"ITM technology would change the way oxygen is separated and used. EPRI's involvement with this technology is important as EPRI will directly involve the electric utility industry in helping to guide scale-up and integration of ITM technology for clean energy. This collaboration will give the industry a first-hand understanding of the technology," said Ted Foster, director, business development for Advanced Gas Separation at Air Products.
ITM技术使用陶瓷材料，在压力和温度下，电离和将氧分子与空气中的含量分离。在此过程中不需要外部电源来源。该技术将是传统的低温空气分离单元的替代方法，其常规生产IGCC厂和任何氧燃料燃烧动力系统所需的大量氧气。ITM技术通常将在这些发电厂的氧气供应系统中减少30％和资本成本的内部电力需求。
“通过降低煤气化和氧气燃烧的成本，ITM技术将有助于将来一代将在利用世界有限的土地和水资源较少的同时捕获和储存两氧化碳排放的燃煤发电厂。”说Bryan Hannegan，环境副总裁和epri代代。“epri很高兴地将几家公用事业公司合作，支持航空产品的ITM技术开发电力应用，我们预计我们的努力将有助于将ITM技术加速到市场。”Hannegan补充说，这项技术的其他潜在益处可包括降低冷却用水和氧气分离植物的土地或空间要求。
发电行业的氧气需求可能大幅增长，支持先进的煤基生成和集成碳捕获技术。EPRI estimates the current U.S. power generation industry share of the oxygen market is about four percent, but it could become the dominating market driver, accounting for more than 60 percent of the future market, or approximately two million tons-per-day (TPD) of oxygen by 2040.
Air Products and EPRI will examine the scale-up of the process and equipment, and the integration of ITM technology with other operations in advanced coal power systems. This research strengthens theon-going work by Air Products in the DOE cooperative program to develop options to lower the capital and operational costs of IGCC and oxyfuel combustion systems that require large amounts of oxygen. Air Products, which has been developing ITM technology since 1988, and the DOE already are collecting data from the operation of a five TPD oxygen pilot plant unit near Baltimore, Md. This Baltimore facility leads to the next step of designing, building, and testing a 150 TPD unit, and integrating it with a 5-to-15 megawatt industrial turbomachinery device. Completion of the 150 TPD intermediate scale test unit is expected in 2010.