Thermo-economic analysis of chemical looping processes

Among the different ways of capturing carbon dioxide in industrial processes, chemical looping process is presented as an improvement in oxy-fuel combustion. Since carbon dioxide is directly generated with water in the process, there is no need of an additional, expensive capture system, which is always high energy consumer. The objective is to evaluate how chemical looping advantages in carbon dioxide capture can be adapted to hydrogen and power cogeneration. Methane is used as incoming energy source, and is associated to iron and its oxide magnetite as oxygen carrier. A thermo-economic model of the process including a thermo-dynamic model and an energy integration model is developed to evaluate the process performance with regard to costs and energy efficiency. From the sensitivity analysis and optimization, optimal operating conditions taking into account investment, production costs and efficiency are assessed in a next step.