(696d) CO2 Capture Modeling, Energy Savings, and Heat Pump Integration

While amine-based CO₂ capture systems have been designed since 1927, concern over anthropomorphic climate change sparked renewed interest in the 1980’s. Subsequent research has led to significant advances such as well-fit thermodynamic models, rigorous rate-based distillation simulations, and improved process designs. The aims of this presentation are to (1) summarize proposed process improvements; (2) demonstrate the strong and complex interactions of energy-saving schemes; (3) report an optimal process design integrating all of these improvements in Aspen Plus, and then evolutionally simplify the design through simulation results. In particular, we propose an optimum energy-saving design (U.S. Patent No. 10,751,664) that uses an absorption-driven heat pump together with a distributed cross heat exchanger and a stripper vapor condensate rerouting in order to reduce both the cooling and heating utility consumptions. The resulting predicted solvent regeneration energy for the integrated system is 1.67 GJ/tonne CO2 captured. China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (SINOPEC) is currently implementing the process to recover 1 million tons per year of CO₂ from the power plant flue gas in the Shengli Oil Field, Shangdong Province, for tertiary oil recovery.