Intensified Process for CO2 Capture from Ship Engine Flue Gas

The transport sector is the second largest contributor to global CO2 emissions. With the increase in population and business industrialization, ocean shipping is an increasingly prevalent transportation method for the global trading of goods. CO2 emissions from ship transport are predicted to rise above 1.6 billion tons/year by 2050. Use of zero emission fuels like hydrogen and ammonia on ships holds the ultimate solution. However, their wide deployment will take time. In the interim, on-board CO2 capture (OCC) becomes an essential transition strategy to reduce emissions from ships until zero emission technologies become widely available. Although the emissions reduction potential of OCC is significant, currently its CO2 abatement costs are $100-290 $/tonneCO2, which is much higher than the shipping stakeholdersĺ expectations of 60 $/tonneCO2. There is an urgent need to develop a lower cost and more efficient marine OCC system with higher carbon capture rates, lower energy consumption and lower CAPEX & OPEX. Susteon proposes to develop an onboard CO2 capture (OCC) process using an intensified rotating packed beds (RPB) along with a novel high-performance solvent Sustenol? specially developed for flue gas CO2 capture to reduce the excess space, weight, and energy requirement for OCC. RPB reactors are compact with higher heat and mass transfer required for efficient CO2 capture. Innovations proposed in this conceptual design includes waste heat recovery using an organic Rankine cycle heat pump, highly efficient RPBs, proprietary solvent Sustenol? with higher capture efficiencies and lower energy requirements, novel-intercooling technologies during CO2 compression and novel pretreatment process for engine flue gas. These innovations combined will reduce the energy required for OCC by 50-60% and reduce the CAPEX and OPEX by 30-40%. The proposed process significantly reduces the cargo capacity loss by 21% with a capture of cost of about 73 $/tonneCO2, which is 42% lower than the current state-of-the-art OCC post-combustion capture technologies (127 $/tonneCO2). With maturity and improvement of the proposed process the cost of CO2 capture can be lowered to below 60 $/tonneCO2. The proposed Phase I project seeks to conceptualize the design and analyze the feasibility of the marine carbon capture process outlined above. We will develop process flow diagrams and provide detailed description of the technologies used in the complete process from pretreatment of marine engine flue gas to CO2 offtake. The capture process model will be combined with the upstream and downstream traditional CO2 compression and liquefication processes to produce liquid CO2 for onboard storage. The total size and weight of the process equipment in all unit operations will be estimated and specified, including onboard storage unit. Susteonĺs existing rate based SustenolÖ process model for CO2 capture will be used to study the rate and the ability of the capture system to perform in transient operating conditions of the ship. Phase I project will also include performing a detailed life cycle analysis (LCA) and a technoeconomic analysis (TEA), a technology gap analysis to identify critical elements that need to be further developed and validated, a comparison of the proposed approach with other potential decarbonization options such as sustainable marine fuels or electrification of the shipĺs powertrain.