ABSTRACT FOR TRONDHEIM CCS CONFERENCE 2011 TITLE: TECHNO-ECONOMIC SCENARIO FOR SORPTION BASED TECHNOLOGIES IN PRE-COMBUSTION IGCC

FRAMEWORK CO2 REMOVAL

AUTHORS:

Ashok Dave, Sina Rezvani, Ye Huang, David McIlveen-Wright, Neil J Hewitt Centre for Sustainable Technology, University of Ulster, NI, UK. Annemieke van de Runstraat, Eva Sanchez Fernandez TNO Research Centre Separation Technology, Leeghwaterstraat 46, NL-2628 CA

E-MAIL: KEY-WORD:

ashokddave@yahoo.com (corresponding author) AC, CCS, DMEPEG, IGCC, MGA, MGD, PC, PP, PSA, PVTMS, selexol,

ABSTRACT: The techno-economic assessment of IGCC systems with novel carbon capture (CC) technologies is investigated in this paper using CO2 absorption principles. The work is part of the European DECARBit project. The main aim of this research work is the significant reduction of CO2 avoidance costs. This requires efficiency improvements and component cost reductions against a base case IGCC/CC plant using physical absorption. Three system configurations are presented here: (a) Membrane Gas Absorption (MGA): CO2 absorption in propylene carbonate (PC) absorbent across poly(propylene) (PP) hollow fibre membrane (b) Membrane Gas Desorption (MGD): CO2 desorption from DMEPEG (selexol solvent) across PVTMS flat sheet membrane (c) Activated Carbon (AC) based Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) for bulk removal of CO 2 from syngas downstream of water-gas shift reaction. As part of the techno-economic assessment, the above technology options are compared with a reference case based on the Selexol (DMEPEG) process. The system performance is estimated using a bottom-up approach, modelling the techno-economics of individual modules and integrating them systematically in to a complete power plant. For example, the power requirement for solvent circulations between membrane and flash drums are calculated as part of the MGD/MGA system followed by a cost calculation. The component costs made of equipment, installation, and indirect costs are then incorporated into the final IGCC configuration. The overall plant cost including fixed and variable operating costs consumables such as solvents, fuel, and labour are ultimately employed to complete the overall economic assessment The MGD/MGA systems use membrane contactors as a barrier to absorb/desorb CO2 in physical solvents. The MGA process maintains a high-pressure membrane contactor with the syngas as the feed stream followed by a flash tank to recover the solvent, in this case propylene-

carbonate. MGD system does not require any flash tank. The main technical assumptions and data for MGD originate from the test facility of TNO in Netherlands. The economics of CO2 separation in the above sorption based technology is mainly associated with the following elements: (a) Physical / Chemical / Thermal conditioning of the sorption agent, (b) circulation of sorption agent, (c) cost of sorption agent, (d) cost of separation equipment. An electricity cost reduction of around 3/MWh could be achieved using the above technologies compared to the base case. The CO2 avoidance cost could be reduced by around 4/t using MGA/MGD system. These values are still not very promising and presuppose further optimisations. The Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) Technology is the other system studied in this work. In contrast to the conventionally accepted application area of trace product removals, e.g. impurities and moisture elimination from industrial product streams, this technology option is adapted for bulk removal of CO2 from syngas coming from the water-gas shift reactor. The adopted system in this case study uses activate carbons (AC) as sorbents. The cycle operates on different pressure stages spread within six beds. No recirculation is considered here. The adsorbent beds, the valves, and the activated carbon adsorbents represent the main cost components of this module. A noticeable cost improvement of CO 2 separation could be achieved using this technology. The main disadvantage of this system is its complexity and a higher power consumption and cost of the CO2 compression unit.