Power Stations as Chemical Plants — Could Power Become the Byproduct?

Abstract

The need of power stations to act as integrated chemical plants is a new departure for the electricity supply industry. The need to control pollutants from power generation plants while at the same time utilising waste products to generate income from the sale of valuable by products is a potential prospect.

The technology already exists at commercial scale to treat high sulphur fuels in conventional power stations or coal gasification plants to produce elemental sulphur, sulphuric acid or gypsum as saleable products. Future prospects may involve the utilisation of carbon dioxide either as received gas or its conversion to useful compounds. The coal ashes also provide a potential feed material to recover aluminium oxide and supply the existing smelters with an indigenous raw material.

In this paper, an attempt is made to examine the potential of power stations to become chemical plants; to identify both the nature and quantities of the chemicals which could be produced and to assess whether the chemical industry is able to absorb these products and provide a firm market base.