Mexico’s street vendors go solar (1:55)

Dec 20 – Roadside food vendors in Mexico’s Oaxaca are re-fitting gas-powered food stalls with solar technology. It’s all thanks to efforts of a Swiss solar cooking pioneer who wants to change the world one street cart at a time.

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Main component and caloricity of biomass gas are different for difference of characteristic of biomass fuel and gasification method.

Through strict cleaning and thermal cracking, the dust & tar content of biomass gas are very tiny, which can meet the requirement for the internal-combustion engines normal operation.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 19th July 2009

Mitsubishi Heavy to Test CO2

Recovery from Coal-fired Flue Gas

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd (MHI) and Southern Company, a major US power company, will jointly launch a field test in 2011 to recover high-purity carbon dioxide (CO₂) from coal-fired flue gas.

The two companies will set up a CO₂ recovery demonstration plant, which is designed to be built at a medium-scale thermal power station in Alabama, the US. Based on the results of this demonstration plant, they will aim to commercialize the recovery plant in the future.

The field test will be subsidized by the US government. The demonstration plant will be constructed in Plant Barry, a coal-fired power station owned by Southern’s subsidiary Alabama Power. Recovered CO₂ will be compressed and stored in an aquifer deep underground.

The demonstration plant is composed of various facilities such as those for pre-processing, CO₂ absorption/reclamation (absorption and reclamation towers) and CO₂ injection. The plant will recover 500t of CO₂ per day (equivalent to that produced when 25,000kW electricity is generated). The recovery rate is 90% or higher. The purity of recovered CO₂ is expected to be 99.9%.

The recovery process is as follows. Coal-fired flue gas contains not only CO₂ but also ‘impurities’ such as SOx, NOx, heavy metals and halogen compounds. These impurities are removed as much as possible in the pre-processing facilities, and the flue gas is cooled to near room temperature.

Flue gas with most impurities removed is taken into the absorption tower. Inside the tower, the gas is brought into contact with an absorbing solution so that only CO₂ is absorbed into the solution. The solvent, “KS-1,” is an amine-based material co-developed by MHI and Kansai Electric Power Co Inc.

Next, the solution containing CO₂ is sent to the reclamation tower, where CO₂ and the solution are separated from each other by heating. Then, CO₂ is recovered, and the solution is recycled.

MHI has already commercialized a system to recover CO₂ from natural gas-fired flue gas. But, in order to apply this system to coal-fired flue gas, an additional process is required to remove heavy metals and halogen compounds because the impurities contained in natural gas-fired flue gas are only SOx and NOx.

Electric Power Development Co Ltd is also testing a CO₂ recovery plant for coal-fired flue gas at its Matsushima Thermal Power Plant. However, the amount of CO₂ recovered at the plant is only 10t per day. Therefore, a field test needs to be carried out using a larger scale plant for commercialization.

In addition to the field test announced this time, MHI is planning to construct a demonstration plant with a recovery capacity of 3,000t per day in the UK and intends to start trial operations in 2015.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 1st July 2009