Combining Petcoke Gasification and Natural Gas Reforming for Oil Sands Waste-to-Energy

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Petcoke is a carbon-rich waste generated by petroleum refineries and bitumen upgraders from Canadian oil sands facilities. It can be combusted for heat, but the sulfur and carbon dioxide emissions are worse than coal combustion, so many refineries avoid combustion due to environmental regulations. Instead, refineries often choose to stockpile it (in Alberta, stockpiles are nearly doubling every two years), or, ship it elsewhere to be used where petcoke combustion is permitted. Therefore, my research program investigates new ways of converting petcoke into valuable energy products in environmentally friendly ways. The goal is to create a new process which would have almost no sulfur or CO2 emissions, but yet is profitable without the need for significant government incentive. This would encourage the conversion of petcoke into valuable products, potentially displacing petrochemical products such as fuels and polymers and resulting in a net environmental benefit. This research program will use computer modeling to work toward a profitable, emissions-free petcoke conversion facility. In Objective 1, we will create detailed computer models to help develop a novel radiant cooler for a petcoke gasifier which will use the high temperature heat created in the gasifier to convert natural gas into hydrogen. The new cooler design is expected to give higher system efficiencies than a traditional cooler because the hydrogen is very useful in making energy products such as synthetic fuels and alcohols. In Objective 2, we will use computer models to create a conceptual design of a hybrid gas turbine / solid oxide fuel cell power generation system, which will be powered by waste gases produced by the petcoke conversion process. In Objective 3, we will use chemical process models to design systems which can capture up to 100% of the CO2 produced from certain kinds of advanced power plants with little energy penalty. In Objective 4, we will incorporate these results and others from our prior work into computer models which we will then use to create a process that converts petcoke to fuels, chemicals, and/or electricity, but with zero carbon dioxide emissions. Overall, the proposed concept is an innovative approach to converting petcoke wastes into value-added products. This could have a significant benefit to the Canadian energy industry since petcoke waste is produced in large quantities from the refining of most conventional crudes and oil sand crudes originating in Canada. The proposed process would increase the profits of Canadian refineries, reduce the growing stockpile of petcoke in Alberta, and prevent up to 500 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year worldwide—equivalent to removing 100 million passenger cars from the road.