Reducing the Cost of CO₂ Capture from Flue Gases Using Pressure Swing Adsorption

Abstract

Pressure swing adsorption (PSA) processes have been used extensively for gas separation, especially in the separation of hydrogen from CO2, and in air purification. The objective of this paper is to examine the economic feasibility of pressure swing adsorption (PSA) for recovering CO2 from postcombustion power plant flue gas. The analysis considers both high-pressure feed and vacuum desorption using commercial adsorbent 13X, which has a working capacity of 2.2 mol/kg and CO2/N2 selectivity of 54. The results show that using vacuum desorption reduces the capture cost from US$57 to US$51 per ton of CO2 avoided and is comparable in cost to CO2 capture using conventional MEA absorption of US$49 per ton of CO2 avoided. In this paper, a sensitivity analysis is also presented showing the effect on the capture cost with changes in process cycle; feed pressure and evacuation pressure; improvements the adsorbent characteristics; and selectivity and working capacity. The results show that a hypothetical adsorbent with a working capacity of 4.3 mol/kg and a CO2/N2 selectivity of 150 can reduce the capture cost to US$30 per ton of CO2 avoided.

Low concentration CO2 capture using physical adsorbents: Are metal–organic frameworks becoming the new benchmark materials?

“…Nevertheless, a recent study projected that the ideal solid sorbent for cost-effective post-combustion capture and separation of CO 2 from flue gas using PSA should exhibit CO 2 selectivity above 500, combined with a working capacity in the range of 2 to 4 mmol/g for a CO 2 /N 2 10/90 mixture (Figure 8). 101 Given this baseline, various adsorbents can be evaluated for their suitability to replace costly liquid amine scrubbing or cryogenic distillation.…”

Post-combustion CO2 capture with a commercial activated carbon: Comparison of different regeneration strategies

“…20 kJ mol -1 [23], which is nearly half of that of zeolite 13X [21,24]). Ho et al estimated that using zeolite 13X, a capture cost of US$ 51 per ton of CO 2 avoided could be attained, including the cost of product compression (purity of 48 %), with an additional capital investment for capture of US$ 1300 per kW [3]. Radosz et al estimated a total cost of compressed-pipeline ready CO 2 of US$ 27 per ton for a power plant integrated TSA process, and of US$ 44 per ton for a VSA process, using an activated carbon as adsorbent [4].…”

“…However, this technology presents a series of drawbacks, such as high energy requirement associated to sorbent regeneration, amine losses due to evaporation, corrosion problems, thermal and chemical degradation of the amines in the presence of oxygen, etc. Adsorption is a separation technology with potential to reduce the cost of post-combustion capture compared to amine scrubbing [3][4][5]. Two main adsorption technologies are being considered: pressure swing adsorption (PSA) and temperature swing adsorption (TSA).…”

Sustainable biomass-based carbon adsorbents for post-combustion CO2 capture

“…+34 985 11 90 90; Fax: +34 985 29 76 62 e-mail address: frubiera@incar.csic.es regenerate the diluted amine solvent: a parasitic loss of 30% of the net power is expected from the use of MEA processes [3]. Adsorption is a separation technology with the potential to reduce the energy penalty of the capture step compared to amine scrubbing [4][5][6][7][8]. The main advantages of adsorption processes over amine scrubbing are the lower energy requirements and the higher capacity on a volume basis [9].…”