Technoeconomic evaluation of combined rich and lean vapour compression configuration for CO2 capture from a cement plant

Abstract

A combined rich and lean vapour compression configuration was investigated for CO2 capture from a cement plant. This was to assess its performance in energy consumption, actual CO2 emission reduction, and cost reduction potentials compared with the conventional process and the simple rich vapour compression and lean vapour compression configurations. Two electricity supply scenarios were considered: from natural gas combined cycle power plant and a renewable source like hydropower. The three vapour compression configurations outperformed the standard CO2 absorption configuration in energy requirement, actual CO2 emissions reduction and in CO2 avoided cost reduction. The best performance was achieved by the combined rich and lean vapour compression configuration. The reboiler heat, equivalent heat and CO2 avoided cost reduction performance was 24 – 30 %, 16 -18 % and 13 – 16 % respectively. However, the performances in energy, CO2 emissions reduction and CO2 avoided cost are only marginally better than the lean vapour compression configuration. The use of renewable electricity, like hydropower electricity will help CO2 capture processes to achieve higher CO2 emission reduction and lower CO2 avoided cost compared to fossil fuel based electricity.