Design of a low-cost CO2 capture process based on heat integration technology

CO2 capture and storage (CCS) technology has attracted attention to mitigate CO2 emission. Among the dominant CO2 capture technologies, pressure swing adsorption (PSA) is a promising alternative but requires still intensive energy consumption. In this study, a novel self-heat recuperation technology has been applied to the PSA process to reduce the CO2 capture cost. The detailed energy input of the proposed process is simulated using a commercial process simulator (PRO/II, Invensys). The simulation results indicate that the heat of adsorption stage (exothermic reaction) can be significantly recovered by reaction heat transformer (RHT), and reused for adsorbent regeneration (endothermic reaction). Meanwhile, an expander is added to recover wasted pressure associated with residual gas. As a result, the energy consumption of the proposed process is reduced to 0% of that of the conventional process. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.