CHEERS holds annual meeting at The Silesian University of Technology, Gliwice, Poland, November 4-6.

The CHEERS partner Silesian University of Technology hosted the 2019 annual meeting of the CHEERS project, bringing together researchers, technologists and experts from its nine partners. A total of 29 project participants representing four European countries and China shared their most recent results.

This EU project has high ambitions of building and operating a demonstration-scale Chemical Looping Combustion unit with 3 MW thermal capacity. The CHEERS project plan follows the pattern set by classic design, engineering and construction activities. The process starts with identification of the most effective main concepts, which are evaluated and a final concept chosen. The headline results of the design studies were confirmed in the annual meeting in Gliwice. This forms the basis of the next phase, Front End Engineering and Design (FEED), in which detailed drawings of the entire test rig, supported by the process and detailed modelling and design activities, as well as laboratory measurements of key parameters. The detailed design work will be completed together with an initial cost estimate of the constructed test rig.

There have been some surprises along the way. High expectations were placed in the initial project plan to save time and costs by retrofitting an existing circulating fluidized bed boiler unit at the location of the project partner Dongfang Boiler Group Company. Careful comparison of the retrofit case with a new, ‘grassroots’ design/build shows that the grassroots design is preferable in many practical aspects. One of these is to accommodate two solutions for a subsystem to handle three different types of solid fuels, one of these being biomass.

Author: Info CHEERS