Amine-based CO2 Capture Technology Research Articles

Catalytic CO2 Desorption from MEA Solution of Al-FeOOH Composite Catalysts’ Desorption Performance, Structure–Activity Relationship, and New Mechanism

In order to reduce the massive heat duty of amine-based CO2 capture technology, an AlOOH/FeOOH composite catalyst (AF-M/N) was synthesized to speed up the CO2 desorption rates and reduce the heat duty of an aqueous MEA solution. The catalysis of AF-M/M from 1/9 to 9/1 was investigated comprehensively, with characterization of the catalytic desorption with heat duty and desorption factors. Results indicated the special composite catalyst (AF-1/9) possessed optimized catalysis with a relative heat duty of 78.7% and a desorption factor of 0.0037 × 10−3 (mol CO2/L2 kJ min) and relative desorption factor of 194.7%. The structure–activity correlations indicated that the mesopore surface area (MSA), which reached 329 m2/g, and Brϕnsted/Lewis acid ratio (B/L ratio) of 0.11 were the most important factors for enhancing catalysis. Furthermore, molecular simulations were conducted for the catalytic carbamate breakdown mechanism, focusing on the “isomerization” of “carbamate acid” vs. “Zwitterion” as the key step. From the DFT study, the isomerization was most likely to proceed with H2O as catalyst via intermolecular proton transfer instead of intramolecular proton transfer, with an activation energy Ea of 85.9 kJ/mol. With the aid of AlOOH the isomerization was further facilitated due to stabilized Zwitterion, and the Ea decreased to 69.2 kJ/mol. The results not only synthesized a new heterogeneous catalyst but also revealed the map of “isomerization” on a molecular level. Such a discovery indicates that water-assisted proton transfer is advantageous for catalytic carbamate breakdown.

Revealing the potential of cyclic amine morpholine (MOR) for CO2 capture through a comprehensive evaluation framework and rapid screening experiments

The present study comprehensively evaluates the CO2 capture performance of morpholine (MOR) at concentrations of 2 M, 5 M, and 7 M, comparing its effectiveness against conventional amines, monoethanolamine (MEA) and 2-(methylamino)ethanol (MAE). The assessment criteria include CO2 absorption rate, desorption rate, cyclic capacity, regeneration energy consumption, and relative economic cost. Utilizing 13C Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) technology, we analyzed the variations in ion concentration of the amine solvents under different CO2 loadings to reveal the reaction mechanisms of MOR with CO2. Our results demonstrate that MOR outperforms MEA and MAE in CO2 capture performance, particularly excelling in desorption efficiency. At a concentration of 7 M, MOR exhibited a 357.86% increase in average desorption rate and a 46% larger cyclic capacity compared to MEA. Additionally, MOR showed a 33.33% reduction in regeneration energy consumption and a 7.89% decrease in relative economic cost. The comprehensive evaluation method developed in this study indicates that MOR, with its high thermal stability and low corrosivity, maintains excellent CO2 capture performance at high amine concentrations, suggesting it as a promising absorbent for industrial applications. The findings contribute to the optimization of amine-based CO2 capture technologies and provide a robust framework for the selection and assessment of amine solvents, paving the way for more sustainable and cost-effective carbon capture solutions.

Tuning CO2 reaction enthalpy via metal complexes for advanced amine technology

A new chemistry was proposed for metal-ion-mediated amine regeneration with tunable CO2 reaction enthalpy via metal complexes enabling a better energy performance of amine-based CO2 capture technology.

Harvesting CO2 reaction enthalpy from amine scrubbing

Amine-based CO2 capture technology suffers high energy consumption, of which the exergy loss of CO2 absorption enthalpy is a significant contributor to the process irreversibility. Recovery and utilisation of CO2 absorption enthalpy is therefore of paramount significance to advance amine technology towards low capture cost. The present study proposed a reaction enthalpy harvesting amine process (REHA) with the purpose to directly utilise the CO2 absorption enthalpy for building heating. In the REHA process, we redefine the operational conditions of CO2 capture process with dual targets of high capture performance as well as high enthalpy recovery. It is revealed that using the benchmark mono-ethanolamine (MEA) absorbent 1.62 GJ/tonne CO2 could be harvested though process modification and multiple heat extraction, enabling a high energy recovery efficiency of 82%, whilst maintaining 90% absorption efficiency and low heat requirement of 2.6 GJ/tonne CO2. Integration of REHA with CO2 capture process enables an appreciable cost of CO2 avoided decreased from $63.5/tonne to $54/tonne CO2 (16% reduction) at a heat price of $7/GJ and 5-months heat supply. The economic viability of REHA process is anticipated to be further promoted with the rise of heating price and increasing demand of space heating.

Enhanced CO2 desorption rate for rich amine solution regeneration over hierarchical HZSM-5 catalyst

High energy consumption during the carbon dioxide (CO2) desorption process in amine-based CO2 capture technology is a crucial hindrance to achieving carbon neutrality. HZSM-5 is one of the most widely reported solid acid catalysts used in primary amine regeneration. This work compared a series of HZSM-5 zeolites with different Si/Al ratios in terms of CO2 desorption performance. To further enhance catalytic activity, hierarchical HZSM-5 was synthesized by the dealumination and desilication re-assembly method with different acid and alkali concentrations. The experimental results suggested that desilication by modification in sodium hydroxide resulted in a significant improvement of mesoporous surface area. The NaOH-0.4 catalyst could improve the amount of desorbed CO2 by 40.3% and decrease the relative heat duty by 28.5%. And the cyclic tests revealed that catalytic activity was well preserved in the recycling process. Moreover, the structure and acidity of modification samples were characterized by X-Ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transforms infrared (FT-IR), Nitrogen adsorption–desorption experiment, temperature programmed desorption of ammonia (NH3-TPD), Pyridine-adsorption infrared spectroscopy (Py-IR), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The characterization results suggested that the synergistic effect of larger mesoporous surface area and total acid sites was important to enhance catalytic CO2 desorption performance. These results showed a new understanding of catalyst design for CO2 capture technology by modifying the structure of the catalyst support.

Attapulgite as a cost-effective catalyst for low-energy consumption amine-based CO2 capture

The extensive heat duty of solvent regeneration has significantly hampered the industrial application of amine-based CO2 capture technology. Catalytic CO2 desorption with solid acid catalysts has recently emerged as a promising and competitive strategy for improving solvent regeneration performance. The reported catalysts have exhibited poor activities and are relatively expensive, which has slowed the large-scale implementation of this technique. In this work, three low-cost and environmentally friendly clay catalysts, namely, attapulgite (ATP), activated bentonite (K-10), and sepiolite (SEP), were used to catalyze the CO2 desorption in the CO2-loaded 5 M monoethanolamine (MEA) solution at 88 °C. The findings revealed that ATP, K-10, and SEP catalysts accelerated CO2 desorption, and the ATP demonstrated better catalytic activity in the early stage of the desorption process. In particular, the introduction of ATP significantly increased the CO2 desorption rate by 54–57% and reduced the relative heat duty by about 32%, compared to the blank test. The superior catalytic performance of ATP might be attributed to its favorable surface area and medium acid sites. The catalytic effect of ATP was confirmed using FT-IR and Raman techniques, and a potential catalytic desorption mechanism was proposed. Furthermore, the stability of activated ATP was demonstrated using 15 CO2 absorption-desorption cycles. These results demonstrated that ATP significantly contributes to the advancement of the amine-based CO2 capture process and has significant potential for large-scale deployment. This work may pave the avenue for developing abundant and inexpensive clay-based solid acid catalysts for low-energy consuming CO2 capture technology.

Techno-Economic Analysis of Amine-based CO2 Capture Technology: Hunter Plant Case Study

The technical and commercial feasibility of carbon dioxide (CO2) capture with sequestration (CCS) in a geologic formation adjacent to PacifiCorp's Hunter Plant was evaluated. This includes the development of expected performance, and capital and operating costs associated with implementing CCS on Unit 3 at the Hunter Plant that burns low-sulfur, sub-bituminous coal. This study effort also includes the evaluation of multiple capture levels using a commercially available amine-based system as the basis for the capture technology. The system design and costs were developed based on the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' (MHI) KM-CR Process® with KS-1™ solvent. Due to economies of scale, the overall cost of capture ($/ton of CO2 removed) is less at larger capture rates. The cost of capture ranges from $50, $61, $74/ton CO2 removed for 90%, 65% and 1000 lbs/MWh,g of CO2 capture from Hunter 3 with the CO2 purity greater than 95%.

Evaluating Energy-Efficient Solutions of CO2 Capture within Tri-solvent MEA+BEA+AMP within 0.1+2+2–0.5+2+2 mol/L Combining Heterogeneous Acid–Base Catalysts

To reduce the extensive energy penalty of CO₂ desorption process of amine-based CO₂ capture technology, the combination of “coordinative effect” with “heterogeneous catalysis” was adopted into “MEA+BEA+AMP” tri-solvents at special concentrations (0.1–0.5+2+2 mol/L) with solid base catalysts “CaCO₃” and various solid acid catalysts “γ-Al₂O₃, H-ZSM-5, and blended γ-Al₂O₃/H-ZSM-5”. Experiments were performed to evaluate if there were synergetic effects within the optimization of amine blend concentrations and catalyst selections. Reaction schemes were investigated within the tri-solvents to understand the absorption and desorption mechanisms of coordinative effect. CO₂ absorption was performed at 40 °C, and CO₂ desorption was performed at 90 °C. Five tri-solvent compositions with various catalysts were investigated in terms of initial absorption rate (Iₐbₛ), initial desorption rate (Idₑₛ), heat duty (H), and cyclic capacities, which were categorized into absorption–desorption parameters systematically. The results indicated that tri-solvents with catalysts were highly energy-efficient. The optimized tri-blend was 0.3+2+2 mol/L MEA+BEA+AMP, which performed better than the 2+2 mol/L BEA+AMP benchmark on both absorption and desorption. The optimized regeneration performance of tri-blends was 0.3+2+2 mol/L, and its relative heat duty was 32.9% of that of 5 M MEA and 66.5% of that of 2+2 M BEA+AMP. Results manifested that the combination of solid acid–base catalysts with tri-solvents containing “coordinative effects” was a promising solution to further optimize the energy efficiency of CO₂ absorption–desorption within industrial amine-based CO₂ capture processes.

One-Step Synthesized SO42-/ZrO2-HZSM-5 Solid Acid Catalyst for Carbamate Decomposition in CO2 Capture.

Amine-based CO2 capture technology requires high-energy consumption because the desorption temperature required for carbamate breakdown during absorbent regeneration is higher than 110 °C. In this study, we report a stable solid acid catalyst, namely, SO42-/ZrO2-HZSM-5 (SZ@H), which has improved Lewis acid sites (LASs) and Bronsted acid sites (BASs). The improved LASs and BASs enabled the CO2 desorption temperature to be decreased to less than 98 °C. The BASs and LASs of SZ@H preferred to donate or accept protons; thus, the amount and rate of CO2 desorption from spent monoethanolamine were more than 40 and 37% higher, respectively, when using SZ@H than when not using any catalyst. Consequently, the energy consumption was reduced by approximately 31%. A catalyzed proton-transfer mechanism is proposed for SZ@H-catalyzed CO2 regeneration through experimental characterization and theoretical calculations. The results reveal the role of proton transfer during CO2 desorption, which enables the feasibility of catalysts for CO2 capture in industrial applications.

Amine-based capture of CO2 for utilization and storage

Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technology is an effective CO2 fixation technology, as documented by the special report produced by Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Today, this technology has become important due to the threat of global warming and climate change. Furthermore, the development of carbon dioxide capture and utilization (CCU) technology, which reuses the captured CO2, has been prioritized in recent years to accelerate the deployment of “CCUS.” For both utilization and storage, CO2 capture is a key process that determines how efficiently decarbonation is able to meet the global target. Regardless of the maturity of various types of CO2 capture technologies, amines are the most widely used chemical species. This paper contains a brief overview of CCUS followed by a discussion of several aspects of amine-based CO2 capture technologies. Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technology has become important due to the threat of global warming and climate change. Furthermore, the development of carbon dioxide capture and utilization (CCU) technology, which reuses the captured CO2, has been prioritized in recent years to accelerate the deployment of “CCUS.” Amine-based CO2 capture is a key process for realizing a carbon neutral society.

Catalytic performance and mechanism of SO42−/ZrO2/SBA-15 catalyst for CO2 desorption in CO2-loaded monoethanolamine solution

The intensive energy requirement for rich solvent regeneration is the biggest obstacle to the widespread industrial application of amine-based CO2 capture technology. To address this challenge, here, for the first time, the composite catalysts SO42−/ZrO2/SBA-15 (SZS) with varying ZrO2 content were synthesized and then used to reduce heat duty for the CO2-loaded monoethanolamine (MEA) solution regeneration at 370.65 K. Additionally, the physicochemical properties of the prepared catalysts were characterized by various techniques, i.e. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), N2 adsorption–desorption experiment, ammonia and CO2 temperature programmed desorption (NH3/CO2-TPD), and pyridine-adsorption infrared spectroscopy (Py-IR). The catalytic CO2 desorption performances of different catalysts (three SZS catalysts, SBA-15 and HZSM-5) were studied in terms of desorption rate, energy consumption and cyclic capacity. The experimental results show that the catalytic performance of SZS is better than the individual catalysts, and SZS can enhance the desorption factor by 100–200% and reduce the energy consumption by 20–26.50% compared to the blank run. Furthermore, the SZS catalysts have no negative influence on the CO2 absorption performance in terms of the absorption rate and have the advantages of good stability. Moreover, a possible catalytic mechanism in amine regeneration over SZS catalyst is proposed. This work may open a new avenue for rational generation of the novel catalysts for this priming catalyst-mediated CO2 desorption process and further advance the amine-based CO2 capture technology.

Exergy Analysis and Evaluation of the Different Flowsheeting Configurations for CO2 Capture Plant Using 2-Amino-2-Methyl-1-Propanol (AMP)

This paper presents steady-state simulation and exergy analysis of the 2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol (AMP)-based post-combustion capture (PCC) plant. Exergy analysis provides the identification of the location, sources of thermodynamic inefficiencies, and magnitude in a thermal system. Furthermore, thermodynamic analysis of different configurations of the process helps to identify opportunities for reducing the steam requirements for each of the configurations. Exergy analysis performed for the AMP-based plant and the different configurations revealed that the rich split with intercooling configuration gave the highest exergy efficiency of 73.6%, while that of the intercooling and the reference AMP-based plant were 57.3% and 55.8% respectively. Thus, exergy analysis of flowsheeting configurations can lead to significant improvements in plant performance and lead to cost reduction for amine-based CO2 capture technologies.

Zeolite catalyst-aided tri-solvent blend amine regeneration: An alternative pathway to reduce the energy consumption in amine-based CO2 capture process

The extensive energy penalty of CO2-loaded solution regeneration is one of the most crucial challenges facing industrial application of amine-based CO2 capture technology. Here, to decrease the energy requirement, the regeneration behaviors of the rich 5 M monoethanolamine (MEA) and 3 M MEA-2.5 M N-methyl-diethanolamine (MDEA)−0.5 M piperazine (PZ) tri-solvent blended amines (tri-blend) with four different solid acid catalysts (H-mordenite, Hβ, HZSM-5 and Al2O3) were studied at 98 °C. For the catalyst-free tests, the results revealed that the tri-blend hugely enhanced the CO2 desorption kinetics and reduced the relative energy consumption compared to 5 M MEA. Based on the results of 13C NMR, the multiple proton transfer paths and abundant bicarbonate ions in the tri-blend contribute to the improved regeneration performance. Additionally, the use of catalyst further improved the CO2 desorption activity of the tri-blend. The combination of Hβ and tri-blend presented the best regeneration performance, increasing the desorption performance by 1360.8%, and reducing the relative energy requirement by 66.1% compared with the blank run of MEA. In addition, a plausible catalytic mechanism of solvent regeneration over the solid acid catalyst in the tri-blend was suggested. The superior catalytic performance of Hβ resulted from the large mesoporous surface area, larger number of Brϕnsted acid sites and prominent total acid sites. Furthermore, Hβ displayed excellent stability and had no adverse influence on the CO2 absorption activity. Results herein manifest that the combination of tri-blend amines with high-efficiency catalyst is exceptional strategy for tremendously decreasing the energy consumption of amine-based CO2 capture processes, ultimately making this technology more technically and economically feasible.

Assessing the environmental impact of an integrated steel mill with post-combustion CO2 capture and storage using the LCA methodology

In the interest of mitigating global warming and climate change, the leading industrial sectors such as the iron and steel industry, as one of the most significant industrial contributors to anthropogenic CO2 emissions, is challenged to find more efficient and environmentally clean solutions to reduce their CO2 emissions while maintaining high process efficiencies and low production costs. To find new ways of reducing CO2 or other emissions to air, water and soil, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology can be employed to trace and quantify the most significant sources of emissions, starting from the raw-materials extraction to the final product's usage/disposal. In this work, a "cradle-to-gate" LCA study was performed, according to CML 2001 impact assessment method, for an integrated steel mill with and without carbon capture and storage (CCS). Two post-combustion CO2 capture technologies: a conventional chemical absorption technology using mono-ethanol amine (MEA) and a more innovative one based on calcium looping (CaL) are evaluated and compared against the benchmark case represented by the integrated steel mill without CCS. All results are reported on the basis of one metric ton of hot rolled coil (HRC) produced. Analysing the most significant environmental impact categories leads to the conclusion that integrating CCS into the steel production route, decreases the global warming potential in the range of 47.98–75.74%. Generally, the decrease of CO2 emissions goes along with an increase of the other impact categories regardless of the technology used, as the adoption of CCS technologies leads to efficiency losses, which, in turn, brings additional fuel demand and related other emissions. Among the investigated capture technologies, CaL shows significantly better environmental performance than the conventional amine-based CO2 capture technology as the decrease observed in eight of the environmental indicators, other than GWP, is between 2.90% and 48.87% compared to the case when MEA is applied.

Investigation of aerosol and gas emissions from a coal-fired power plant under various operating conditions

ABSTRACTThe concentrations of fine particles and selected gas pollutants in the flue gas entering the stack were measured under several common operation modes in an operating coal power plant producing electricity. Particle size distributions in a diameter range from 10 nm to 20 μm were measured by a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS), and the flue gas temperature and concentrations of CO2 and SO2 were monitored by a continuous emission monitoring system (CEMS). During the test campaign, five plant operating modes were studied: soot blowing, bypass of flue-gas desulfurization (FGD), reheat burner operating at 0% (turned off), 27%, and 42% (normal condition) of its full capacity. For wet and dry aerosols, the measured mode sizes were both around 40 nm, but remarkable differences were observed in the number concentrations (#/cm3, count per square centimeter). A prototype photoionizer enhanced electrostatic precipitator (ESP) showed improved removal efficiency of wet particles at voltages above +11.0 kV. Soot blowing and FGD bypass both increased the total particle number concentration in the flue gas. The temperature was slightly increased by the FGD bypass mode and varied significantly as the rating of reheat burner changed. The variations of CO2 and SO2 emissions showed correlations with the trend of total particle number concentration possibly due to the transitions between gas and particle phases. The results are useful in developing coal-fired power plant operation strategies to control fine particle emissions and developing amine-based CO2 capture technologies without operating and environmental concerns associated with volatile amine emissions.Implications: The measurement of the fine particle size distributions in the exhaust gas under several common operating conditions of a coal-fired power plant revealed different response relations between aerosol number concentration and the operating condition. A photo-ionizer enhanced ESP was demonstrated to capture fine particles with higher efficiency compared to conventional ESPs, and the removal efficiency increased with the applied voltage. The characteristic information of aerosols and main gaseous pollutants in the exhaust gas is extremely important for developing and deploying CO2 scrubbers, whose amine emissions and operating effectiveness depends greatly on the upstream concentrations of fine particles, SO2, from the power plant.

Biotransformation in water and soil of nitrosamines and nitramines potentially generated from amine-based CO2 capture technology

Nitrosamines (NSAs) and nitramines (NAs) are identified as possible degradation products from amine-based post-combustion CO2-capture (PCCC). Selected NSAs and NAs were subjected to aerobic and anaerobic biodegradation studies. In a screening study with 20 μg/L NSAs and NAs at 20 °C, only NSAs and NAs containing hydroxyl groups (alkanol compounds) exhibited aerobic biotransformation >10% after incubation in 28 days. Extending the biodegradation period to 56 days resulted in ≥80% biotransformation of the examined alkanol NSAs and NAs at 20 °C. Biotransformation (20 °C; 56 days) of the NSA NDELA at different concentrations (1–100 μg/L) did not differ significantly, but both water sources and temperatures affected biotransformation of the tested compounds. Anaerobic biotransformation (20 °C; 56 days) occurred rapidly with alkanol NSAs and NAs, but not with alkyl compounds. Interestingly, 1st order rate coefficients and half-lives indicated comparable or even faster anaerobic than aerobic biotransformation at the same temperature. Predictions of biotransformation pathways suggested that the -OH substituent of alkanol NSAs and NAs was more susceptible to degradation than nitroso- and nitro-substituents.

Influence of pH on the UV photolysis of N-nitrosamines in water: Kinetics and products

Amine-based post-combustion CO2 capture is recognized as a promising technique for abating CO2 emissions from anthropogenic sources. A severe drawback of this technique, however, is the formation of carcinogenic N-nitrosamines as a by-product. In this study, the effect of pH was investigated on the UV photodegradation of N-nitrosamines (N-nitrosodiethanolamine (NDELA), N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA), and N-nitrosomorpholine (NMOR)) which are closely related to the amine-based CO2 capture technology. A decrease in pseudo-first-order degradation rate constants was observed for NDELA (2.49×10−2–6.48×10−3L/W-min), NDEA (1.56×10−2–5.25×10−4L/W-min), and NMOR (1.68×10−2–7.00×10−4L/W-min) with an increase in pH2−10. The formation of NO2− was more prevalent than that of NO3− at pH4−10, while under strong acidic condition (pH2) NO3− formation was more prevalent. The concentration of secondary amines (diethanolamine, diethylamine, and morpholine) increased from basic (pH10) to weakly acidic conditions (pH4) and then decreased at pH2. Whereas, the concentration of primary amines (monoethanolamine and ethylamine) followed the opposite trend. Furthermore, mechanistic pathways were revealed for N-nitrosamine photodegradation based on the degradation products. A good total nitrogen (TN) balance over the irradiation period confirmed that all the main degradation products were quantified.

An overview of solvent management and emissions of amine-based CO2 capture technology

Increasing global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are a rising concern for the global climate change. Amine-based post-combustion CO2 capture (PCC) technology is one of the mature options to contribute to the mitigation of these emissions. The technology is approaching toward its commercialization. However, there are two important problems, which should properly be addressed, solvent management and the amine-based PCC emissions. Major losses in amines are due to the oxidative and thermal degradation. Concentration of oxygen (O2) is the driving force for the oxidation. Temperature, CO2 loading and amine concentration affect both thermal and oxidative degradation. This manuscript reviews solvent selection, thermal and oxidative degradation of amines used for CO2 capture. Furthermore, amine-based PCC emissions have also been highlighted, with some of their concerns. Based on literature reviewed and discussions provided, conclusions are made. In addition, some of the future work is also directed in form of suggestions.

Economic assessment of novel amine based CO2 capture technologies integrated in power plants based on European Benchmarking Task Force methodology

The objective of this paper is to assess the economic advantages of an innovative solvent for CO2 capture on state-of-the-art solvents. The CESAR-1 solvent, which is an aqueous solution of 2-amino-2-methyl-propanol (AMP) and piperazine (PZ), is applied both to advanced supercritical pulverised (ASC) coal and natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plants with post-combustion CO2 capture units. The methodology includes process model developments using commercial simulation programs, which determine the thermodynamic properties of the selected power plants and the performance of the CO2 capture units. The results show that the techno-economic benefit of CESAR-1 versus MEA is more significant for ASC than that for NGCC due to a higher concentration of CO2 in the flue gas. This follows from the fact that the switch from MEA to CESAR-1 solvents reduces the electricity cost by 4.16€/MWh in the case of the ASC plant compared to 0.67€/MWh in connection with the proposed NGCC plant. Based on the above figures, we can conclude that CESAR-1 reduces the cost of CO2 avoided compared to MEA by 6€/t CO2 and 2€/t CO2 for the selected ASC and NGCC plants respectively. In view of that, the techno-economics can be improved if the CO2 capture plant is designed to operate using the CESAR-1 absorption technology due to a reduction in the regeneration energy and the solvent recirculation rate (considering its higher CO2 net capacity). However, the variable costs of running the capture plant are higher for the CESAR-1 solvent due to the higher cost of the amines.

Thermodynamic assessment of amine based CO2 capture technologies in power plants based on European Benchmarking Task Force methodology

Post combustion CO2 capture (PCC) with amine solvents is seen as one of the possible technologies which can be implemented in the near term to significantly reduce CO2 emissions from fossil fuel power plants. One of the major concerns for its implementation at large scale in power plants is the high capital and operating costs of the technology. This paper examines the performance of advanced supercritical (ASC) pulverised coal and natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plants with two post-combustion CO2 capture units. The capture units are based on chemical absorption with an advanced amine solvent, CESAR-1, which is an aqueous solution of 2-Amino-2-Methyl-Propanol (AMP) and piperazine (PZ), and the conventional Monoethanolamine (MEA) solvent. The comparison between the mentioned technologies is based on the technical assumptions and method provided by the European Benchmarking Taskforce (EBTF) methodology, which is a first attempt for establishing a common European Standard for comparative studies. The resulting net electric efficiencies for the power plants without capture are 45.25% and 58.3% for the ASC PC and NGCC cases respectively. When CO2 capture is applied, the net electrical efficiencies of the studied plants decreases. In the ASC power plant, the MEA capture unit decreases the efficiency by 11.7 percentage points, while the CESAR-1 capture unit decreases the efficiency by 9.4 percentage points. For the NGCC power plant, the reductions are 8.4 and 7.6 percentage points for the MEA and CESAR-1 capture units respectively. Therefore, the evaluation of CESAR-1 under the EBTF standards shows a reduction on power production penalty of 25% for the coal fired plant and 12% for the gas fired plant compared to conventional MEA.