PICC Power Induced Catalytic Combustor

PICC – Power Induced Catalytic Combustor

This project focuses on the development of a catalytic reactor system that extracts energy from non-ignitable, methane-containing lean gases. Such gases can be found, for example, at old landfills and are often burned with an open flame by feeding in ignitable fuel gases. In this way, not only is the energy of the lean gas left unused, but additional energy is expended to avoid the release of methane, which is very harmful to the climate. The idea of the PICC is to convert these lean gases flamelessly in a catalytic combustor and, in combination with a gas turbine, to generate both thermal and electrical energy.

The project is being carried out in close cooperation with the KAEFER company and the Institute for Automation Technology (IAT) at the University of Bremen. In the sub-project being worked on by the UFT, the focus is on the process engineering design of the PICC as well as the precise investigation and evaluation of the catalyst used with regard to temperature and poisoning resistance. The resistance of the catalyst is of particular importance in connection with the planned PICC in several respects.

On the one hand, the catalytic combustion of methane requires a comparatively high temperature, which can greatly reduce the activity of the catalyst. On the other hand, in addition to high humidity, accompanying substances such as halogen compounds or sulfur compounds are to be expected in landfill gases. The latter pose a major challenge for the catalytic combustion of methane, because both the hydrogen sulfide  present in landfill gases and the sulfur dioxide formed at higher temperatures are known catalyst poisons that can lead to rapid deactivation of the catalyst, depending on the concentration and the catalyst used. The characterization of the catalyst with respect to these deactivation mechanisms is thus particularly important in order to be able to estimate the behavior with different fuel gas compositions as well as the possible areas of application of the PICC.