CCC/232 ISBN 978-92-9029-552-5

February 2014

copyright © IEA Clean Coal Centre

Abstract

In recent years, the considerable increase in the price of crude oil and natural gas and concerns about

their security of supply focused attention on whether fuel for power production and feedstocks for the

chemical industry could be obtained from the gasification of coal. The need to reduce greenhouse gas

emissions has enhanced the prospects of power generation from Integrated Gasification Combined

Cycle (IGCC) plant. However, the higher capital costs and concerns about reliability and availability

of IGCC plant have limited their market penetration. The coal gasifier has been a significant source of

operational issues.

A thorough understanding of the processes occurring in a gasifier is essential both for addressing

existing causes of gasifier unavailability and improving designs for the future. Many complex

processes take place in a gasifier and developing models of gasifiers results in a greater insight into

these processes. Computational models in conjunction with plant data can be used to evaluate gasifier

operation, solve operational problems, probe new designs and provide performance data for

commercial scale-up.

This report has surveyed models which are currently available for modelling gasifiers. The report

contains a brief description of the three types of gasifiers which are most commonly used. The models

available for each type of gasifier are considered. Insight gained by modelling has advanced the

design of gasifiers and can improve gasifier performance. In some cases, the results have been

compared with plant data and it has been possible to choose model inputs to give reasonable fit with

the measured data. However, there are fewer examples where modelling has directly solved

operational problems.