Design and System Evaluation of Mixed Waste Plastic Gasification Process Based on Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle System
Hui Xu, Bin Shi
Abstract
Plastic products are widely used due to their superior performance, but there are still limitations in the current methods and technologies for recycling and processing of waste plastics, resulting in a huge wasting of resources and environmental pollution. The element composition of waste plastics determines its great gasification potential. In this paper, three different waste plastic gasification processes are designed in a process simulator based on the conventional Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) system to achieve waste conversion and utilization as well as carbon capture. Design 1 is based on the cryogenic air separation (CAS) process to obtain oxygen, which is sent to the gasifier together with steam and pretreated waste plastics. The synthesis gas is purified and synthesized into methanol, and the residual gas is passed to the gas turbine and steam turbine to achieve multiple production of heat, electricity, and methanol. Design 2 uses a Vacuum Pressure Swing Adsorption (VPSA) process to produce oxygen, which reduces the energy consumption by 56.3% compared to Design 1. Design 3 adds a calcium-looping (CaL) reaction coupled with a steam conversion reaction to produce high-purity hydrogen as a product, while capturing the generated CO2 to improve the conversion rate of the reaction.