(506f) Techno-Economic Analysis of Post Combustion Processes for the Capture of Carbon Dioxide From Power Plant Flue Gas

Capture and sequestration of CO2 from power plant flue gas have become an important issue in the discussion about global warming. Different concepts of capture are being pursued. The advantage of post combustion processes, like processes based on absorption and stripping, is the possibility of retrofitting a state-of-the-art power plant with a capture plant under reasonable effort. Capturing CO2 by using an absorption/stripping process requires energy in form of electricity and steam both supplied by the power plant. The capture process thereby reduces the overall efficiency of the power plant by up to 13%pts. Apart from the development of new solvents, alternative and novel configurations of the process can lower the energy requirements. Three alternative configurations, an absorber intercooling, a matrix stripper and a configuration with two strippers, are economically and technically evaluated and compared to a baseline process represented by a standard absorption/stripping process using monoethanolamine (MEA) as a solvent. Based on the simulation results the capital and operating and maintenance cost were charged. Savings in cost of CO2-avoided of 2 ? 5% were attained by the alternative configurations. Regarding the total power required, savings of 4 ? 7% were obtained. The results showed that not the process with the highest energy savings has the lowest cost of CO2-avoided, but that the influence of rising investment costs of more complex configurations cannot be ignored. For a comprehensive analysis of different configurations it is essential to perform both, an economical evaluation as well as a technical study.