Techno-economic assessment of glassmaking decarbonization through integration of calcium looping carbon capture and power-to-gas technologies

Abstract

Glass industry involves high temperature melting processes mainly based on fossil fuel combustion so far. This paper proposes the integration of Power to Gas and carbon capture to reduce the CO2 emissions, as well as the dependency on fossil fuels. Four novel concepts, modelled in Aspen Plus, are analyzed separately and compared with a conventional glass plant in terms of CO2 reduction potential and energy and economic penalties. The economic scenarios of full electricity purchase and full self-production with a photovoltaic plant are compared. The reference case, also modelled in Aspen Plus, has been validated with bibliographic data, being deviations of the main parameters <6 %. The low-carbon alternatives take advantage of the synergies between the different technologies: Calcium Looping, methanation and glassmaking processes. The main results show great reductions in fossil natural gas consumption as well as in CO2 emissions, specifically up to 95 % and 87 %, respectively. Furthermore, the different assessed low-carbon strategies may be combined to reach higher savings of CO2 emisions, reducing economic penalties.