Control issues in the design of a gas turbine cycle for CO2 capture

This article is concerned with control issues related to the design of a semi-closed O-2/CO2 gas turbine cycle for CO2 capture. Some control strategies and their interaction with the process design are discussed. One control structure is implemented on a dynamic simulation model using a predictive controller, and simulations assess the performance and compare its merits with a conventional PI structure. The results indicate that it can be advantageous for operability to allow a varying (as opposed to fixed) compressor inlet pressure, at the cost of a more expensive design. Furthermore, the results show that a predictive controller has some advantages with respect to the simpler conventional PI control structure, in particular in terms of constraint handling.