Attrition rate of potassium-based sorbent particle in a riser and cyclone of a circulating fluidized bed for a 10 MWe scale post-combustion CO2 capture system

A dry sorbent post-combustion CO2 capture process using a circulating fluidized bed (CFB) was developed to a 10 MWe scale. Particle attrition is a major challenge for many CFBs owing to the loss of particles and increased operating costs. Furthermore, predicting and alleviating the rate of particle attrition in an entire CFB is difficult owing to limited information on attrition in the riser and cyclone. This study experimentally investigated particle attrition in risers and cyclones and the effect of system scale-up using CO2 adsorbent particles used in a 10 MWe scale CFB. Experiments were conducted in two types of CFBs to measure the attrition rate in the riser and cyclone for 22 and 12 h for each experimental condition. To verify the scaled-up effect, internals were added to the riser to measure the effect of the surface-area-to-volume ratio. Correlations for the attrition rate of CO2 adsorbent particles in riser and cyclone were proposed, and a model for the scale-up effect was suggested. In the 10 MWe scale system, particle attrition mainly occurred in the cyclone (58.0 %) and riser (37.3 %) according to the calculation, and the calculated overall attrition rate reasonably matched the operational data.