TY - JOUR AU - Budzianowski, Wojciech M. PY - 2011 TI - Low-carbon power generation cycles: the feasibility of CO2 capture and opportunities for integration JF - Journal of Power Technologies; Vol 91 No 1 (2011) KW - energy and fuels; CO2 capture; integration N2 - Low-carbon power generation receives increasing interest due to climate warming concerns. The present article analyses three low-carbon power cycles. The focus is on the feasibility of CO 2 capture and opportunities for energy and mass integration. The first power cycle is a zero-carbon solid biomass fuelled multi-step gasification gas turbine power cycle which applies multi-step solid biomass conversion being a more reversible process than one-step biomass combustion. The second zero-carbon coal fuelled oxy-gasification steam chemical looping combustion gas turbine cycle benefits from (i) improved cycle efficiency due to the increased reversibility of a chemical looping combustion process, (ii) cycle mass and energy integration due to several recirculation loops involved and (iii) extremely high CO 2 capture rate due to purity of CO 2 /H 2 O mixture achieved at the outlet from a syngas reactor. The last power cycle - a biogas fuelled oxy-reforming fuel cell cycle - is superior in the feasibility of CO 2 capture, i.e. CO 2 is captured from CO 2 -enriched streams and due to the utilisation of renewable biogas, negative net CO 2 atmospheric emissions are achieved. It is concluded that high CO 2 capture rates are feasible from pressurised CO 2 -enriched streams comprising either water or hydrogen, thus necessitating oxy-fuel power cycles. Opportunities for mass and energy integration are found to be increased in systems involving closed mass and energy recirculation loops. The discussions also emphasises that low-carbon power cycles could achieve minimised exergy losses by applying more reversible energy conversion processes. UR - https://papers.itc.pw.edu.pl/index.php/JPT/article/view/226