CO₂ laboratory

Investigation of Corrosion Processes in CSS Power Plants

In the CO₂ Laboratory of the Chair of Power Plant Technology, technologies are researched that allow the use of fossil fuels with very low emissions, securing the future of energy production in Germany.

Lignite and anthracite coals currently (2010) make up about 43% of electricity production, while 13% comes from natural gas and oil. These percentages will probably increase in the short term due to the determined backing out of nuclear energy.

The CCS technology (Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage) is an important measure in making electricity production more environmentally friendly in the intermediate term. The Chair of Power Plant Technology is concentrating on a single CCS process: Oxyfuel. In this process, the fuel, for example lignite or anthracite, is burned in a pure oxygen environment, resulting in a flue gas is made up mostly of carbon dioxide and steam. The carbon dioxide can then be easily separated out.

The demands on the materials used in the furnace are different in the Oxyfuel process from what they are in conventional firing processes. The altered flue gas composition is expected to have an effect on corrosion processes. The Chair of Power Plant Technology is exploring how these changes affect processes and sustained furnace use.

To this end, various material samples are exposed over extended periods (2000 h) to an artificial environment (synthetic flue gas, ash, high temperature), after which the resulting corrosion is analyzed and corrosion mechanisms inferred.

In parallel, the corrosion processes are modeled using software for the calculation of thermodynamic equilibrium processes in order to reach conclusions regarding the individual reaction processes as well as corrosion-constraining and corrosion-helping parameters.

Interfaces:

CO₂ combustion and transport

Contact:
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hans Joachim Krautz (BTU Cottbus)
Dr.-Ing. Matthias Klatt (BTU Cottbus)

Laboratory Setup for extended-period corrosion tests.

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