Life cycle assessment of membrane-based carbon capture and storage

Many investigations have conducted life cycle assessments (LCA) of the most commonly discussed routes of carbon capture and storage (CCS): post-combustion with amine wash separation; oxyfuel using cryogenic air separation and pre-combustion by integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) using physical separation. A research alliance developed corresponding separation systems using different types of membranes to allow a more energy efficient separation process: polyactive polymeric membranes for post-combustion, ceramic membranes for oxyfuel and metallic membranes for IGCC separation. By conducting an LCA, the study examines the actual greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts of the new membrane separation technologies, together with concepts implementing the more common technologies. The reference systems represent today’s state-of-the-art supercritical coal fired power plant in Germany, together with a more advanced ultra-supercritical plant operating at 700 °C without CO2 capture. The results demonstrate that among the three reference power plants the IGCC is the superior concept due to the highest efficiency. Regarding climate change, the IGCC power plants with CO2 capture are still the best concepts. When other environmental impacts are considered, the capture technologies are inferior. The membrane concepts show the overall better results in comparison to the conventional capture technologies. The environmental impacts for membrane applications add a new range of findings to the field of CCS LCAs. Now the results for several different approaches can be compared directly for the first time.