The Staged, Pressurized Oxy-Combustion Technology: Status and application to Boiler Retrofits to Yield Carbon-Negative Power via Biomass

Duarte Magalhaes; Mao Cheng; Zachariah Wargel; Richard L. Axelbaum

doi:10.1016/j.eng.2025.11.016

Engineering ›› :202511016 DOI: 10.1016/j.eng.2025.11.016

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The Staged, Pressurized Oxy-Combustion Technology: Status and application to Boiler Retrofits to Yield Carbon-Negative Power via Biomass

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Abstract

Recognizing the benefits of pressurization and fuel staging on the efficiency of oxy-combustion, the staged, pressurized oxy-combustion (SPOC) process was introduced in 2012. The combination of fuel staging and pressurized oxy-combustion results in a more compact plant, a higher plant efficiency and reduced costs for pollutant and greenhouse gas removal compared with plants equipped with conventional carbon capture. This approach to power generation enables a modular boiler design and optimizes the plant for flexible operation, which is essential to meet the demands of the modern grid when it contains intermittent power sources. Originally designed to burn coal, the SPOC process is well-suited for biomass because the combustion of biomass leads to a high moisture content in the flue gas and the SPOC process is able to recover the latent heat of this moisture, enhancing system performance over that of traditional biomass combustion at atmospheric pressure. The present work is focused on evaluating the potential for utilizing the SPOC process in retrofit applications wherein the boilers of an existing plant are replaced with the SPOC process, and woody biomass is used as the fuel to yield carbon-negative power. Two applications are considered: power generation and cogeneration (heat and power). Modeling these systems in Aspen Plus demonstrates that the SPOC process surpasses the performance of baseline plants with post-combustion capture (PCC) for both power generation and cogeneration. Specifically, compared to a PCC equipped plant, the SPOC power plant has 33% higher efficiency, and the SPOC cogeneration plant reaches 42% higher net energy. Experimentally, the existing SPOC facility was fired for the first time with 100% biomass and after minor improvements were made to the feeding system, the facility demonstrated excellent performance during startup, steady-state operation and turndown.

Keywords

Staged pressurized oxy-combustion / Carbon negative power / Cogeneration / Industrial decarbonization / Carbon capture and storage

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Duarte Magalhaes, Mao Cheng, Zachariah Wargel, Richard L. Axelbaum. The Staged, Pressurized Oxy-Combustion Technology: Status and application to Boiler Retrofits to Yield Carbon-Negative Power via Biomass. Engineering 202511016 DOI:10.1016/j.eng.2025.11.016

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