Emerging technologies in post-combustion carbon dioxide capture & removal

Abstract

While climate change has been recognized as a major issue in our century, posing existential threats at the planetary scale and affecting people’s lives worldwide, relatively little in a practical sense has been accomplished to date in terms of concrete action to mitigate this burning issue. Carbon Capture Utilization and Sequestration (CCUS) and its expansion to Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and Negative Emissions Technologies (NET) have been widely accepted as important and necessary pathways to mitigate anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). Post-combustion CO2 emissions are a major contributor to anthropogenic CO2 emissions and currently constitute greater than 30% of total global CO2 emissions. This paper reviews the existing post-combustion CCUS technologies in terms of their current stage of development, their commercialization potential by 2035, and options for their improvement. Consideration will be given to the fundamental principles upon which the reviewed technologies are based and the information available in the public domain by each technology provider. Of the reviewed technologies, two amine-based absorption technologies (MHI, Shell) have reached technology readiness level (TRL) 9 and are now at the commercialization stage. Several demonstration-based technologies at TRL > 6 are rapidly developing and they feature solvent, adsorption-based, membrane, and cryogenic carbon capture and hence are the focus of this review. Emphasis will be given to deployed and existing projects, as well as the type, size, and duration of the various development efforts for the technologies reviewed. Several research and development stage carbon capture technologies (TRL < 6) are promising and are expected to reach the demonstration stage by 2035, however, for reasons of succinctness and focus they will not be reviewed here. The authors have applied a commercial yet pragmatic lens in their review and commentary of the various technologies in development to gauge their potential commercial success based upon both existing commercialization stage of the technologies being reviewed, as well as their cost reduction potential. Finally, this review reflects the author’s opinions which are not necessarily shared by the technology owners/developers.