A Technical, Economic, and Environmental Assessment of Amine-Based CO₂ Capture Technology for Power Plant Greenhouse Gas Control

Abstract

Capture and sequestration of CO 2 from fossil fuel power plants is gaining widespread interest as a potential method of controlling greenhouse gas emissions. Performance and cost models of an amine (MEA)-based CO 2 absorption system for post-combustion flue gas applications have been developed, and integrated with an existing power plant modeling framework that includes multipollutant control technologies for other regulated emissions. The integrated model has been applied to study the feasibility and cost of carbon capture and sequestration at both new and existing coal-burning power plants. The cost of carbon avoidance was shown to depend strongly on assumptions about the reference plant design, details of the CO 2 capture system design, interactions with other pollution control systems, and method of CO 2 storage. The CO 2 avoidance cost for retrofit systems was found to be generally higher than for new plants, mainly because of the higher energy penalty resulting from less efficient heat integration, as well as sitespecific difficulties typically encountered in retrofit applications. For all cases, a small reduction in CO 2 capture cost was afforded by the SO 2 emission trading credits generated by amine-based capture systems. Efforts are underway to model a broader suite of carbon capture and sequestration technologies for more comprehensive assessments in the context of multi-pollutant environmental management. DOE/DE-FC26-00NT40935 i AcknowledgmentsThis report is an account of research sponsored by the

A Novel Strategy for Carbon Capture and Sequestration by rHLPD Processing

“…CCS involves the separation of CO2 from industrial and energy-related sources and the subsequent sequestration of concentrated CO2 into secure storage locations, such as onshore and offshore geological formations and ocean storage (Pachauri et al, 2007). Researchers have developed a wide variety of CCS techniques, such as amine scrubbing (Rao and Rubin, 2002;Metz et al, 2005b;Rochelle, 2009), solid adsorbents (Lee et al, 2006;Banerjee et al, 2008), membranes (Eisaman et al, 2010;Li et al, 2011), ionic liquid (Bara et al, 2010;Brennecke and Gurkan, 2010), and calcium looping cycle (MacKenzie et al, 2007;Brennecke and Gurkan, 2010). Among them, amine-based scrubbing is the most commercially available technology to capture CO2 from dilute atmospheric pressure gas (Metz et al, 2005b;Rochelle, 2009).…”

“…Among them, amine-based scrubbing is the most commercially available technology to capture CO2 from dilute atmospheric pressure gas (Metz et al, 2005b;Rochelle, 2009). Currently, the amine-scrubbing process is used to remove CO2 in more than 95% of the USA's natural gas sweetening operation (Rao and Rubin, 2000;Rochelle, 2009). Monoethanolamine (MEA) is a commonly used amine absorber.…”

“…MEA first absorbs CO2 from flue gas or combustion gas to form carbamate and bicarbonate adducts in the absorption tower (absorber) at low temperature (40-80°C) and is subsequently sent to a stripping tower (stripper). In the stripper at elevated temperatures (100-120°C), 70-80% of CO2 is released and the original sorbent is recovered (Rao and Rubin, 2000). The released CO2 is then pressurized, transported, and stored/injected underground either in geological formations, oil wells, or retired mines.…”

“…However, high pressure technology is not practical and economical in industry. Considering the high CO2 concentration in the MEA aqueous solution at low pressure and temperature (~0.5 mol/ mol of MEA at ambient temperature) (Rao and Rubin, 2002), we combined the mineral carbonation with the MEA-based CCS system to sequester CO2 and simultaneously form carbonates in the absorber. However, there was one concern regarding the form of the feed minerals.…”

Modelling atmospheric oxidation of 2-aminoethanol (MEA) emitted from post-combustion capture using WRF–Chem

“…Among alkanolamines, 2-aminoethanol (MEA) has become a benchmark solvent due to its favourable properties towards CO 2 -capture (Vevelstad et al, 2011;Lepaumier et al, 2011;Lepaumier et al, 2009;Puxty et al, 2009). In a full-scale post-combustion capture plant (PCCP) with a capacity of capturing 1 million tonnes CO 2 per year, it is estimated that 40-160 tonnes of amines could be released to the atmosphere (Rao and Rubin, 2002); most realistic is the lower bound (Veltman et al, 2010). An earlier atmospheric worst-case scenario evaluated by Karl et al (2011) showed that deposition of MEA to small lakes, typical for the Norwegian west coast, may exceed toxicity limits for aquatic organisms.…”