A comparative study of refinery fuel gas oxy-fuel combustion options for CO2 capture using simulated process data

Abstract

This chapter highlights the large scale industrial greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters, mainly coal-fired power plants, refineries and other chemical plants are compelled in the near future to reduce their GHG emissions, especially carbon dioxide. This would be in accordance with the Kyoto protocol that is currently awaiting international ratification. Carbon dioxide, a major component of greenhouse gases, could be captured and isolated from different industrial flue gas streams by installing a CO2 capture and treatment plant. Once CO2 is captured, it can be stored permanently in suitable geological storage sites and/or used for coal-bed methane, enhanced oil recovery, or utilized for many other commercial applications. This chapter presents the application of oxy-combustion and CO2 capture to two refinery fuel gases with given compositions. The simulation results are presented for four different combustion modes, including the air case as the baseline and three oxy-fuel combustion cases. It shows that oxy-fuel combustion is a possible and viable approach for CO2 capture from refinery fuel gases. A cost analysis is also performed to find out the estimated CO2 capture and avoidance costs for each case. The CO2 avoidance cost was found to be approximately 3cents to 4.5cents per kg of CO2, excluding the transport and storage costs.