In the face of rising oil, natural gas and electricity costs, gasification becomes an increasingly attractive option for providing affordable, clean energy. Whether you require syngas to produce chemicals, fuels, electricity, hydrogen or steam, Air Products can help.

With more than 30 years of experience in supplying oxygen for gasification applications, Air Products has the technical expertise necessary to integrate oxygen plants into such gasification and partial oxidation processes as Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC), polygen, Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) and Coal-to-Liquids (CTL), and our engineers have published extensively in this area. In addition to our skills in process integrated and related controls strategies, we can help customers evaluate design options to determine costs and benefits.

Experience

Air Products has an impressive and proven record in designing, constructing, and operating air separation units (ASU's) to supply oxygen for major oil and coal gasification, chemical and other projects worldwide. We are able to comply with local specifications and design codes and use our own specifications in the design and procurement of equipment for a reliable air separation facility.

Currently we are completing the construction of a 7,000 metric ton per day oxygen facility for a customer in Ras Laffan, Qatar. When operational, the project will be the biggest and most technically advanced gas-to-liquids plant in the world. The project will use approximately 330 million cubic feet per day of lean methane rich gas from Qatar's North Gas Field as feedstock to produce 34,000 barrels per day of liquids (24,000 b/d of diesel, 9,000 b/d of naphtha and 1,000 b/d of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

A recently completed single train 2,800 metric ton per day oxygen plant is in operation in Trinidad, used to convert natural gas into methanol. A smaller 1,613 metric ton per day oxygen plant is under construction in Chile for another methanol facility. A selected list of major gasification related oxygen plants supplied by Air Products is listed below.

On-stream	Location	O2, MT/D	O2, bar(g)	Trains	Feedstock	End Use
2008	Nigeria	7,000		2	Gas	Gas-to-Liquids
2006	Nanjing PRC	1,600	75	1	Coal	MeOH/CO
2005	Qatar	7,000	36	2	Gas	Gas-to-Liquids
2005	Chile	1,613	41	1	Gas	MeOH
2004	Trinidad	2,800	42	1	Gas	MeOH
2000	China	1,370	103	1	Naptha	Fertilizer
1999	Baytown, TX	2,360	76	1	Resid	H2/CO
1998	South Africa	1,900	32	1	Coal	Chemicals
1997	Netherlands	3,175	76	1	Resid	H2/Power
1996	Polk County, FL	1,840	40	1	Coal	IGCC
1996	Houston, TX	Pipeline			Gas	H2/CO
1994	Netherlands	1,780	33	1	Coal	IGCC
1987	Plaquemine, LA	1,360	45	1	Coal	IGCC
1984	Convent, LA	1,360	79	2	Resid	H2
1983	Kingsport, TN	1,230	86	3	Coal	Chemicals
1979	LaPorte, TX	2,730	86	3	Resid	Syngas

Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) Experience

Air Products has supplied three dedicated air separation units (ASU) and an oxygen pipeline supply for various integrated gasification combined cycle facilities ranging from 100 to 250 MW.

On-stream	Location	O2, MT/D	O2, bar(g)	Trains	Feedstock	End Use
1997	Netherlands	3,175	76	1	Resid	H2/Power
1996	Polk County, FL	1,840	40	1	Coal	IGCC
1994	Netherlands	1,780	33	1	Coal	IGCC
1987	Plaquemine, LA	1,360	45	1	Coal	IGCC

The Netherlands plant was the world's first fully integrated air separation facility. The 1,780 metric ton oxygen plant obtains all of its air feed via gas turbine air extraction. The unit operates at an elevated pressure, with residual nitrogen compressed and returned to the combustion turbine. Designing the Netherlands ASU to meet the demanding requirements of a highly integrated application has uniquely prepared Air Products to provide equipment and services to serve the needs of any project.

In addition to our experience at Lousiana, Florida, Netherlands and other projects, Air Products has participated in many design and study efforts worldwide to advance gasification combined cycle facility design. In performing IGCC studies, Air Products has worked with all the major combustion turbine suppliers and most of the leading engineering contractors in this industry. Air Products has provided ASUs for various levels of integration with gas turbine combined cycle facilities, as show below:

• The standalone or non-integrated option uses a low air feed pressure ASU selected to reject waste nitrogen to the atmosphere.
   
• The nitrogen integrated design provided for the Florida facility uses an elevated air feed pressure ASU, optimized for a combination of equipment cost and power consumption.
   
• The full air and nitrogen integrated option is designed around the air supply pressure from the gas turbine's air compressor. At the Netherlands facility, all the air for the ASU is supplied via extraction from the gas turbine and all residual nitrogen is compressed for injection into the turbine
   
• In addition to the configurations described above there are other possible arrangements such as multiple air compressor trains that supply air to a common air separation train.  Such a configuration can also include air and/or nitrogen integration with gas turbines.

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A New Air Separation Technology

A new air separation technology—Ion Transport Membrane Oxygen (ITM) is an enabler for advanced clean power and can reduce the cost of gasification. ITM is based on ceramic membranes that selectively transport oxygen ions when operated at high temperature and is being developed by an Air Products-led team in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).  Under the influence of an oxygen partial pressure driving force, the ITM oxygen process achieves a high-purity, high flux separation of oxygen from air. By integrating the oxygen-depleted, non-permeate stream with a gas turbine system, the overall process co-produces high-purity oxygen, power, and steam if desired. As a result, the technology is ideally suited for advanced power generation processes that require oxygen as a feedstock for gasification or combustion, making IGCC and oxygen-enriched combustion ideal applications for ITM Oxygen technology.

ITM Oxygen intergrated with a turbine power cycle produces oxygen, power and/or steam