Fundamental study on a novel gas turbine cycle

It is important and necessary to develop a new technology for CO2 capture with less or even no energy penalty to make a breakthrough in greenhouse gas abatement. Towards this objective, we have proposed a novel gas turbine power plant, which is not only to capture CO2 in the stage of combustion, but also to increase thermal efficiency of the power plant. The chemical-looping combustor in the proposed system consists of a fuel reactor (fuel reacts with metal oxide) and an air reactor (the resulting metal reacts with oxygen in air). This new system requires no additional energy consumption for CO2 separation (i.e., no energy penalty) and no CO2 separation equipment. Here, we have identified several breakthrough points in the proposed system and summarized promising results from experimental investigation on the chemical-looping combustion.