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 percent to 73 percent, 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.The Proposer and Subcontractor are collaborating on the proposed project, to develop a Compact Rapid Cycling Carbon Dioxide Capture system, for capturing pre combustion Carbon Dioxide.Under the Phase II effort, the process was designed into a power plant stream.The full scale system design was scaled down to a prototype reactor design, fabricated and tested, which included a capturing and releasing Carbon Dioxide cycle on one side, while transferring the needed and released heat to the power plant simulated stream, on the other side.By testing the prototype, which simulated a portion of the power plant, the results were relevant to the plant of interest, and were used to update the economic model, better defining the process cost.Under the Phase IIB project, a full scale prototype system will be designed and scaled down to a prototype, for proving tests.The prototype will be fabricated and wash coated with the Subcontractor’s proven Molecular Basket Sorbents which, under the project, will be improved for optimum capture and wash coating.The prototype will be tested on simulated pre-combustion syngas, consistent with the syngas composition of the relevant power plants.The test data and technical and economic analyses will be used to produce a Techno Economic Analysis, of the plant, incorporating the proposed system.The major benefit from the successful execution of the proposed work, and the follow on commercialization of the proposed system, would be the reduction in net Carbon Dioxide emissions.Because of the low operating temperatures and the low heat of desorption, as compared to the baseline case in the solicitation, the proposed system can reduce the increase in the Cost of Electricity associated with carbon capture by 36 percent, resulting in a reduction of the Cost of Electricity by 9 percent.These initial estimates will be updated with a Techno Economic Analysis, to demonstrate the proposed system potential contribution to the DOE/Fossil Energy performance goals of Carbon Dioxide capture with 95 percent Carbon Dioxide purity, at a Cost of Electricity 30 percent less than baseline capture approaches.