Process Intensification for Carbon Capture

Climate change concern has led to a focus on greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, by a large number aging coal fired power plants. The addition of carbon capture to these plants will significantly reduce carbon emissions, but the process requires energy and increases the electricity cost by 32% to 73%, depending on the type of plant. If carbon emissions could be greatly reduced from these plants, at low cost, this would represent a significant contribution to improving air and water quality, and the Department of Energy’s goals of reducing capital costs of plant upgrades and enabling affordable capture would be supported. How this problem is being addressed The proposer has developed a carbon capture technology that can both capture this polluter and replace a portion of the existing high energy stream in power plants, which reduces the additional costs needed for implementing this process, while reducing the plant energy need. This approach will help carbon capture be implemented in fossil fuel power plants, reducing emissions, with minimal increases in electricity prices, by applying a low cost production technique for high capacity carbon dioxide contactors. On the utility side of the contactor, the energy is integrated into the power plants existing streams, thus substantially reducing the carbon capture cost. What was done in Phase I: Under Phase I, testing and analysis was performed to demonstrate process feasibility. A monolith element was tested and proved to capture and release the carbon dioxide, with three times better capacity than a packed bed. The absorption and desorption cycles were tested and showed that its operational characteristics can be exploited by similar cycles in the power plant. The economic analysis showed that the additional cost of electricity is minimal, with the proposed approach. What is planned for Phase II: Under the proposed Phase II, the process will be designed into a power plant stream. The full scale system design will be scaled down to a prototype reactor design, fabricated and tested, which will include capturing and releasing CO2 cycle on one side, while transferring the needed and released heat to the power plant simulated stream, on the other side. By testing a prototype simulating a portion of the power plant, the results will be relevant to a plant, and will be used to update the economic model, better defining the process cost. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits By enabling the production of a reactor at low cost and integrating carbon capture with existing unit operations, it will be more economical to capture carbon and will lower the capital and operating costs for upgraded coal fired power plants, resulting in lower electricity costs for ratepayers, and making investment in this technology more attractive. Key Words Coal, Power Plants, Reactors, Catalysts, Carbon, Capture, Greenhouse Gases