Term of Award

Fall 2024

Degree Name

Master of Science, Mechanical Engineering

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (open access)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Committee Chair

Prakash Bhoi

Committee Member 1

Anoop Desai

Committee Member 2

David Calamas

Abstract

Climate change is a worldwide problem that has recently garnered significant attention in recent years. While widespread emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly CO2, from the combustion of fossil fuels, contribute to global warming, biomass-based heat and electricity generation, on the other hand, is rapidly growing due to its smaller carbon footprint, aiding in attaining the goal of zero carbon emissions. In this study, the environmental assessment of the waste coal and biomass/ torrefied biomass co-fired power plants was completed using the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology through the performance assessment of the co-fired power plants using the commercial power plant modeling software STEAM-PRO® without and with the integration of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies at varying carbon capture efficiencies. The characterization of the feedstocks and the analysis of the biomass/ torrefied biomass-waste coal co-fired power plants exhibited that increasing the biomass/ torrefied biomass ratio in the power plant feed resulted in an increase in the net plant efficiency of the co-fired plants, while the integration of CCS resulted in a significant decrease in net plant efficiency while accounting for an increase in the auxiliary power consumption. The study indicated that co-firing pine/ torrefied pine in power plants enhanced efficiency with a higher biomass ratio, though CCS integration reduced by 32-42%. The 40% biomass-60% waste coal co-firing ratio (BC 40) with CCS achieved an 83% CO2 reduction and a negative GWP, highlighting environmental benefits

OCLC Number

1478257611

Research Data and Supplementary Material

No

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