Energy Efficient Process for CO2 Capture from Flue gas with Novel Fixed-site-carrier Membranes

CO2 capture from large stationary sources is considered as one of the most promising technologies to mitigate CO2 emissions in atmosphere and reduce global warming. Amine absorption is the state-of-the-art technology for CO2 capture, while high energy consumption and potential environmental impacts due to solvent emission and degradation needs to develop second generation solvents with high CO2 loading capacity. Seeking environmentally friendly and energy efficient process with gas separation membranes could be an alternative for this application. In order to compare process feasibility of different techniques for CO2 capture, the general criteria on energy consumption and cost estimation were provided in the current work. The proposed criteria provided an effective way in techno-economic feasibility analysis for CO2 capture by easily adjusting relevant parameters. HYSYS simulation was conducted on a scenario of CO2 capture from a gross output 819 MWe power plant with novel fixed-site-carrier membranes. A relatively low efficiency penalty of 10% and a competitive CO2 capture cost of 47.3 $/tonne CO2 captured were found to be competitive to conventional amine absorption. Membrane systems have potentials for CO2 capture if such performance can be achieved on pilot scale demonstration. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.