Research Projects

The integration of CO₂ capture, storage, and utilization with fossil fuel-based power plants is crucial for countries like India, which heavily relies on coal-based power production. Biomass, a carbon-negative and renewable fuel, is also being explored as a clean energy production option. The Indian government has mandated coal-fired power plants to co-fire biomass with coal up to 5% by energy within a year and 7% within two years. Chemical looping combustion (CLC) is a promising method with inherent CO₂ capture, using oxygen carriers (OC) instead of direct oxygen/air during the fuel combustion process. CLC of solid biomass has unique potential to generate energy with negative carbon emissions with a lower energy penalty. However, scalability depends on factors like reactor configuration, performance of OC, and economics. The major challenges associated with CLC of solid fuels include incomplete fuel conversion due to loss of fuel, volatiles, and char, adverse interactions of coal/biomass ash with OCs, and synthetic nanostructured OCs being less economical for solid fuels. A two-stage fixed bed reactor is proposed to address these issues by facilitating good contact between syngas from gasification and OC bed material in different stages. This design will result in high fuel conversion and avoid fuel loss due to char elutriation. Additionally, engineered nanostructure OCs with high surface area, oxygen-carrying capacity, reactivity, and selectivity are proposed. Comparative performance evaluation studies will be conducted among different cases, with the key outcome being the synthesis of nanofibrous metal oxides with high cyclic stability and design and demonstration of a two-stage fixed bed reactor for energy production with CO₂ capture using coal, biomass, and their blends.