Jano-Ito, Marco and Valera Medina, Agustin  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1580-7133
2026.
Thermodynamic analysis of ammonia co-firing in air-fired and oxy-fuel coal combustion power plants.
Journal of Ammonia Energy
4
(1)
, pp. 74-90.
10.18573/jae.59
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Abstract
Achieving a net-zero future will require renewable energy technologies and the production of hydrogen (H2) to be studied as an integrated system with baseload power alternatives. Oxy-fuel combustion is an attractive technology that could use oxygen (O2) from renewable H2 production and reduce emissions if coupled with carbon dioxide (CO2) storage. Another alternative is ammonia co-firing which is currently being tested in large-scale coal fired power plants because of its simplicity and potential to reduce CO2 emissions from the source. Given the advanced status of ammonia co-firing, oxy-fuel combustion could be integrated into these types of power plants and for this reason, the research presented here has the aim of analyzing ammonia co-firing in large-scale air-fired and oxy-fuel coal power plants by conducting a thermodynamic analysis. From the authors’ knowledge, ammonia co-firing in oxy-fuel systems has not been studied as a large-scale system. As expected, the results show that ammonia co-firing decreases the adiabatic flame temperature (AFT) and the temperature of the flue gases along the air-fired boiler if the excess air coefficient (EAC) is constant. However, changing the value of the EAC could increase the temperature of the flue gases when co-firing is increased. For the oxy-fuel cases, ammonia co-firing presents higher temperatures compared to the air-fired systems helping to maintain the required temperatures inside the boiler. The flue gas recycle (FGR) ratio plays a key role in controlling the temperature inside the oxy-fuel boiler which is impacted by ammonia combustion. While changing the water content of the flue gases in the oxy-fuel systems increases the temperature in the furnace, its impact is not significant along the heat transfer areas. In the case of heat transfer within the furnace it is also shown that the analyzed boiler system can benefit from oxy-fuel combustion, maintaining the required heat absorption levels. Adapting existing air-fired systems for oxy-fuel combustion could increase the level of ammonia co-firing, improving heat transfer inside the boiler. However, this situation must be analyzed for each boiler design so that an optimal configuration and co-firing level is selected.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Engineering |
| Subjects: | T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) |
| Publisher: | Cardiff University Press |
| ISSN: | 2752-7735 |
| Funders: | EPSRC |
| Projects: | EP/W005018/1 |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 30 June 2026 |
| Date of Acceptance: | 15 June 2026 |
| Last Modified: | 30 Jun 2026 08:45 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/187813 |
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