New Sorbents to Contol CO2 and Multi-Contaminant Emissions

"The oil refining industry is one of the most significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions, with considerable contribution from downstream activities. CO2 emissions from refineries rank third among the stationary producers (after power and cement industries), accounting for about 4% of the global CO2 emissions, approaching 1 billion tons per year. In addition, the oil refineries also emit significant amounts of heavy metals (such as mercury and arsenic), through stack emissions. CO2 emissions at refineries can be reduced through a number of routes, including carbon capture and storage via oxy-firing, pre-combustion and post combustion scrubbing, but these methods are expensive. None of the existing technologies reduce the emissions of volatile materials. TDA Research, Inc. (TDA) proposes to develop a low cost, high capacity CO2 adsorbent and demonstrate its technical and economic viability for post-combustion CO2 capture from petroleum refineries. In addition to CO2 the sorbent will remove volatile heavy metals (e.g., mercury and arsenic) from the flue gas. The object of this work is to develop a new chemically modified mesoporous carbon sorbent to simultaneously remove CO2 and other harmful contaminants (e.g., mercury and arsenic) from petroleum refineries. Anticipated Results Phase I In the Phase I project, we will synthesize different sorbent formulation and screen then based on their CO2 capacity and removal efficiency. We will show that the sorbent retains its activity for many adsorption/desorption cycles (a minimum of 1,000 cycle test will be carries out in Phase I) in the presence of flue gas contaminants simulating conditions downstream of a wet scrubber. We will also assess the performance of the sorbent for mercury and arsenic removal. We will carry out a preliminary design of the sorbent reactors used in the adsorption and regeneration steps and project their cost. We will estimate all consumables and parasitic power loss to support the operation of the CO2 capture system. Finally, we will estimate the technical and economic viability of the new multi-pollutant capture technology to retrofit the petroleum refineries. "