Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) represents an alternative power plant concept in which the fuel reacts within a fluidised bed reactor (fuel reactor) with a solid oxygen carrier (e. g., metal oxide). The chemically reduced oxygen carrier is re-oxidised in a second fluidised bed reactor with air. Out of this configuration results the significant advantage of avoiding the air separation unit.

Aim of the joint research project CLOCK is to investigate whether chemical looping is a suitable alternative for coal based power plants. The object of the sub-project performed by IET is to model the whole process realistically with commercially available software. Basis of the research are initial assumptions and data taken from the literature, in order to identify suitable process configurations. These assumptions will then be refined further, using experimental results from the two other working packages (WP2 and WP3) in the joint project. Target is to achieve at the end a realistic process configuration and a faithful evaluation of the plant. As soon as the process is being modelled numerically with satisfactorily accuracy, optimal operating conditions will be sought by carrying out sensitivity analyses and taking into consideration als the experimental results from IFK (University of Stuttgart) and SPE (TUHH).

The IET tasks include the design and energy assessment of alternative process configurations, followed by iterative optimisation of the alternative process configurations in light of the results of WP2 and WP3 of the joint research project. The aim of the overall project is to deliver a realizeable and realistic process scheme at full plant scale for a chemical looping process based on coal.