Experimental investigations into the transient behaviours of CO2 in a horizontal pipeline during flexible CCS operations

Power plants with CCS facilities should be operated flexibly because of the variability in electricity demand. Load change, start-up and shutdown will occur during flexible CCS operations. It is necessary to investigate the transient behaviours of CO2 flow in the pipeline during these operations for optimized operation of CCS plants. However, very limited experimental data for gas-liquid two-phase CO2 under CCS conditions are available. As a result, experimental observations of the CO2 transient behaviours were conducted on a CO2 gas-liquid two-phase flow rig. Load change, start-up and shutdown of a CO2 flow process were replicated on the rig. Coriolis flow-meters and high-speed imaging equipment were used to observe the mass flow rate, thermophysical properties and flow regimes of the CO2 flow. There are significant discrepancies in the mass flow rate of two-phase CO2 between the test value and the reference value during the load change. During the start-up operation, the flow regime transits from liquid slug flow to gas bubbly flow and the mass flow rate from the Coriolis flowmeter presents two-step changes. In addition, the depressurization and evaporation of liquid CO2 in the pipeline were observed during the shutdown operation.