Experiment on carbon dioxide removal from flue gas

Limits to Paris compatibility of CO2 capture and utilization

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted into the atmosphere by fossil fuel combustion is the most significant greenhouse gas contributing to climate change. Use of coal alone accounts for 43% of global CO2 emission in 2010. As the most abundant, the most reliable and cheap energy source, coal will continue to play a significant role in the world’s economy and improving people’s standard of living in particular in the developing countries. With the strong demand for coal, there is no doubt that the CO2 emissions will continue to rise. On May 9, 2013, the daily mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, surpassed 400 ppm for the first time since measurements began in 1958. The rate of increase is ca 2.1 ppm per year during the last 10 years. Without significant reduction of CO2 emissions, it is unlikely to limit the long-term concentration of greenhouse gasses to 450 ppm CO2 by 2050. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a process CO2 is separated from large point sources, including fossil fuel power plants, and transported to a disposal site, normally an underground geological formation, for permanent storage. It is generally agreed that CCS is the only technology available to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions while still using fossil fuels and much of today’s energy infrastructure. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), CCS will account for 19% of total emissions reduction if the global CO2 emissions are halved by 2050. However, looking back, there has been great uncertainty surrounding the commercial implementation of CCS technologies. Despite the fact that all the necessary components of CCS process are commercially available, the question about the large scale CO2 storage remains. The progress towards the commercial deployment of CCS technologies is slow. A number of factors contribute to a slow progress of CCS development. Firstly, the CCS projects are very costly. Most studies estimate that CCS will add more than 50% to the cost of electricity from coal. The costs for the first commercial CCS plants will be much higher than the following projects. No one wants to take the risk to be the first one. Secondly, CCS depends on the political polices to drive it. There is no a legally binding agreement on the emissions reduction applied to all countries and there is no market for CCS. Last but not the least, CCS depends on the government support. In an unfavourably financial environment, the R & D spending is expected to decline. Recently Australian government has announced a budget cut of $500 million over three years to its national CCS flagship program, almost one third of the total funding from the federal government. The Australia’s opposition party has even pledged to abolish the carbon tax if elected in September 2013. So, what is the future for CCS? It is a difficult question to answer. A critical issue is who is going to pay for the development of CCS. It should be pointed out that the majority of the upcoming projects use captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery. The reason for that is EOR can facilitate the development of CCS by improving the financial viability of the CCS, building the infrastructure required for CCS, and developing capability along the supply chain. An increase in EOR projects reflexes the importance of CO2 utilisation. Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) is gaining increased attention in particular in USA and China. It is unlikely for the developing counties to deploy the CCS technologies with financial support from the government alone. In these countries the priorities are to sustain the economic growth and improve people’s living standard. To move CCS forward, it is important to realise the challenges facing the CCS development and make appropriate adjustment based on the political and economic realities. Considering that the funding on the development of CCS is limited, the international R & D program needs to be well coordinated and have the right focus and the right scale to avoid unproductive overlap between demonstration projects and ensure that limited resources are spent wisely to achieve the highest benefits. As a researcher working on CO2 capture, I am glad to

A review of atmospheric carbon dioxide sequestration pathways; processes and current status in Nigeria

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies remove carbon dioxide from flue gases. It is then stored instead of being released into the atmosphere. CCS has the potential to mitigate global warming by capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) at its major production centres such as fossil fuel power plants. Large scale capture of CO2has already been achieved commercially. The CCS is technically feasible and fairly well developed but to date no large-scale power plant is being operated with a full carbon capture and storage system. Compared to a plant without CCS, one with CCS can cut CO2 emissions to the atmosphere by approximately 80-90%. However, the energy required to accomplish CCS increases the fuel needs of a coal-fired plant by about 25%. This, combined with the total system costs significantly increases the cost of energy. This makes CSS currently a relatively expensive mitigation option. Still if fossil fuels remain a major part of the energy mix, the global exigency to reduce carbon dioxide emissions laid under Kyoto protocol can make CCS an attractive option. This article discusses the possibilities and limitations of CCS. The technical and economic uncertainties and obstacles in the implementation of CCS have been illustrated. The status of industrial-scale storage projects in operation and those in the pipeline has also been reviewed.

The potential of direct air capture using adsorbents in cold climates.

CO2 Capture via Crystalline Hydrogen-Bonded Bicarbonate Dimers

Economic feasibility of CO2 capture from oxy-fuel power plants considering enhanced oil recovery revenues

Coal-fired power plants are producing flue gas including almost of Nitrogen (around 79%), next is Carbon dioxide (around 10 -15%), and small amount of others gases such as H2, NOx, SO2. One of the promising methods to reduce CO2 emission is the CO2 sequestration into deep un-mineable coal seams. Presently, the flue gas exhausted from coal-fired plant must be separated to get pure CO2 before injecting into coal seams. In order to enhance the efficient of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) from coal-fired power plant, the oxyfuel combustion technology has been expected. This technology using pure oxygen to combust the coals, therefore, CO2 concentration in the flue gas is increased up to 95% theoretically. This study aimed at characterizing CH4 replacement mechanism in coal by using pure CO2 and a synthesis flue gas (99% CO2 and 1% SO2) that is similar with emission gas from the plants. A measurement procedure for gas adsorption is that after getting methane adsorption equilibrium of the coal samples, pure CO2 or the synthesis flue gas is injected into an adsorption cell in order to investigate CH4 replacement properties. Coal samples used for present experiments were taken from coal seam No 9D, Maokhe coal mine, Vietnam. It was crushed with the size from 250 µm to 2mm. The concentration of gases was taken from the adsorption cell and analyzed by using a gas chromatograph. Adsorption isotherms of CH4, CO2 and SO2 were measured by using the volumetric method apparatus. The characteristics of methane replacement by using pure CO2, the synthesis flue gas and effect of SO2 on adsorption properties of coal have been discussed in this paper. Introduction Global warming and climate change due to greenhouse effect are continuing serious. Especially, CO2 emission into atmosphere from coal-fired power plants should be reduced than that of. One of the most promising methods to reduce the CO2 emission is CO2 sequestration in deep un-minable coal seams. CO2 adsorption capacity of some Vietnam coals were investigated by P.Q.HUY et al. (2006). Its CO2 adsorption is twice higher than that of CH4. Injecting CO2 into coal seams also produces methane by replacement mechanism using Enhanced Coalbed Methane method (ECBM). Coal-fire power plants are producing flue gas including almost Nitrogen (around 79%), next is Carbon dioxide (around 10 to 15%), and small amount of other gases such as H2, NOx, SO2. Presently, the flue gas exhausted from coal-fired plant must be separated to get pure CO2 before injecting into coal seams. Normally, the technologies for CO2 separation from flue gas including physical adsorption, chemical adsorption, cryogenic distillation and membrane separation. Those technologies are much costly and complicated. So that, oxyfuel combustion technology has been expected in order to enhance the efficient of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) from coalfired power plant. This technology using pure oxygen to combust the coals, therefore, CO2 concentration in the flue gas is increased up to 95% theoretically. Many researchers are focusing on applying the oxyfuel combustion technology into coal-fired power plant and the method to get CO2 with high concentration.

Coal and energy security for India: Role of carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS)

Technology is a critically important determinant of the cost of meeting any environmental objective. In this paper we examine the role of a particular technology, carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS), in the stabilization of the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). While CCS is not presently deployed at scale, it has the potential to deploy extensively during the course of the 21st century if concentrations of atmospheric CO2 are to be stabilized. The existing research literature has focused largely on the cost of capturing CO2, with the implicit assumption that storage options would be relatively cheap, plentiful and located in close proximity to future CO2 point sources. However, CO2 capture and storage will take place at the local and regional scale and will compete with other mitigation options that also exhibit local or regional differences. This paper provides an initial examination of the implications of regionally disaggregated demand for and supply of CO2 storage reservoirs within the context of a globally disaggregated, long-term analysis of both the geology and economics of CCS. This analysis suggests that some regions will see their ability to deploy CCS systems constrained by a lack of quality target reservoirs relative to the demand formore » storage placed upon these candidate geologic storage reservoirs by large stationary CO2 point sources within the region. Other regions appear to have sufficient storage capacity to easily carry them into the 22nd century. We examined the regional and global economic implications of the distribution of these sources and sinks in meeting various potential limits to atmospheric CO2 concentrations. This analysis confirms that CCS is an important potential response to climate change throughout the 21st century and a technology that can play a key role in controlling the cost of addressing climate change.« less

Experimental Study on Corrosion Characteristics of CO2 Pipeline for Offshore Transport and Geological Storage

CO2 capture and storage has a potential of reducing CO2 emissions from large point sources such as fossil fuel power plants. CO2 capture is associated with substantial capital expenditures, operational expenditures dominated by high energy use and potential operational restrictions on the underlying industrial processes. The main focus of significant research efforts worldwide is thus to reduce investment costs and improve efficiency of capture technologies. The systematic methodologies developed in our group at SINTEF/NTNU for design of energy efficient fossil fuel power plants with CO2 capture are presented and show the importance of utilizing process synthesis in the design of such plants. These methods range from targeting minimum capture work for different CO2 capture processes, optimization methods for process design of pre- and post-combustion capture processes, developing surrogate models for optimization.

Trade-off in emissions of acid gas pollutants and of carbon dioxide in fossil fuel power plants with carbon capture

Carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas that results in climatic changes. Reducing CO2 emission for addressing the climatic change concerns is becoming increasingly important as the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has increased rapidly since the industrial revolution. Many mitigation methods, including CO2 sequestration and novel CO2 utilization, are currently under investigation. Most of these processes require CO2 in a concentrated form. However the CO2 from large sources such as fossil fueled power plants is mixed with nitrogen, water vapor, oxygen and other impurities. The current commercial operations for capturing CO2 from flue gas use a chemical absorption method with Monoethanol Amine (MEA) as the sorbent. The method is expensive and energy intensive. The cost of capturing a ton of CO2 including removing impurities and compressing CO2 to supercritical pressure using existing MEA technology would be very high, and the power output would be significantly reduced by the energy consumption in capturing and compressing CO2. In this work alternative solvent ammonia, is used which can overcome the disadvantages of current technology using amines such as MEA and DEA.

The growing atmospheric CO(2) concentration and its impact on climate have motivated widespread research and development aimed at slowing or stemming anthropogenic carbon emissions. Technologies for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) employing mass separating agents that extract and purify CO(2) from flue gas emanating from large point sources such as fossil fuel-fired electricity-generating power plants are under development. Recent advances in solvents, adsorbents, and membranes for postcombust- ion CO(2) capture are described here. Specifically, room-temperature ionic liquids, supported amine materials, mixed matrix and facilitated transport membranes, and metal-organic framework materials are highlighted. In addition, the concept of extracting CO(2) directly from ambient air (air capture) as a means of reducing the global atmospheric CO(2) concentration is reviewed. For both conventional CCS from large point sources and air capture, critical research needs are identified and discussed.