Techno-Economic Merit Analysis of Conversion of Captured CO2 to Value-Added Products

There are very limited uses of captured CO₂ other than for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) which currently has in excess of 126 projects some as high as 2 Mtonne/yr capacity.  The Global Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) Insititute provides a list of current and future storage sites and also highlights the challenges and costs of coordinating the development of a CO₂ transportation infrastructure.  Few major industrial CO₂ generation sources (e.g. refineries, ammonia/urea manufacturing facilities, fossil power generation plants etc.) are located close to these storage sites. Hence, substantial CO₂ transportation costs would be incurred after capture. Additionally, legal title to non-EOR geological storage portends costly and protracted litigation and has led to the abandonment of several CO2 sequestration projects.  As a result, different technologies for conversion of captured CO₂ to value-added products are being actively pursued.  Some of these products are: a) inorganic carbonates; b) bio-fixation; c) solar-powered photosynthesis; d) synthesis of specialty chemicals, such as alkyl-carbonates; e) bulk industrial chemicals, such as methanol; f) liquid fuels; and g) solid carbon products.  During this presentation, a comparative techno-economic merit analysis for conversion of captured CO₂ to value-added products is discussed.  The three major criteria in this merit analysis include: a) net CO₂ sequestration based on C-Footprint analysis; b) global market potential of the product manufactured from CO₂; and c) integration with industrial source of captured CO₂.