This study investigates the practicality of using a liquid CO<
sub>
2<
/sub>
/coal slurry preparation and feed system for the E-Gas? gasifier in an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) electric power generation plant configuration. Liquid CO<
sub>
2<
/sub>
has several property differences from water that make it attractive for the coal slurries used in coal gasification-based power plants. First, the viscosity of liquid CO<
sub>
2<
/sub>
is much lower than water. This means it should take less energy to pump liquid CO<
sub>
2<
/sub>
through a pipe compared to water. This also means that a higher solids concentration can be fed to the gasifier, which should decrease the heat requirement needed to vaporize the slurry. Second, the heat of vaporization of liquid CO<
sub>
2<
/sub>
is about 80% lower than water. This means that less heat from the gasification reactions is needed to vaporize the slurry. This should result in less oxygen needed to achieve a given gasifier temperature. And third, the surface tension of liquid CO<
sub>
2<
/sub>
is about 2 orders of magnitude lower than water, which should result in finer atomization of the liquid CO<
sub>
2<
/sub>
slurry, faster reaction times between the oxygen and coal particles, and better carbon conversion at the same gasifier temperature. EPRI and others have recognized the potential that liquid CO<
sub>
2<
/sub>
has in improving the performance of an IGCC plant and have previously conducted systemslevel analyses to evaluate this concept. These past studies have shown that a significant increase in IGCC performance can be achieved with liquid CO<
sub>
2<
/sub>
over water with certain gasifiers. Although these previous analyses had produced some positive results, they were still based on various assumptions for liquid CO<
sub>
2<
/sub>
/coal slurry properties.