Technology and pilot plant results of the advanced amine process

Abstract

The development of CO2 capture technologies is being pursued by US, European, Japanese and other suppliers in collaboration with utility companies, universities and Governments in the USA, Europe, Canada and Australia. Among the more promising post-combustion solutions is the Advanced Amine Process (AAP), jointly developed by Alstom and The Dow Chemical Company (Dow). This paper describes the AAP pilot plant located at a Dow-owned site in South Charleston, West Virginia, USA. It provides an update on how the experience from the pilot plant is used to improve the design and predicted performance of large-scale demonstration plants. It will summarize pilot plant results and show the progress of the technology development. The pilot plant is processing flue gas from a bituminous coal-fired boiler with UCARSOLTM FGC 3000 series of solvents, advanced amine solvents specifically developed by Dow for flue gas applications. The pilot plant has a CO2 removal capacity of ∼5 tonne CO2/day and can capture in excess of 90% of inlet CO2. A test program with a wide range of operating conditions provides information on capture performance, including solvent and operational stability. A state-of-the-art laboratory measures solvent composition, CO2 loading, solvent contamination and degradation species. Long term solvent composition is controlled by a combination of flue gas pre-treatment and solvent reclamation. These results are being used to develop a large-scale demonstration plant (above 250 MWe) under the EU Flagship program in Europe.