Off-Design Operation of Conventional and Phase-Change CO2 Capture Solvents and Mixtures: A Systematic Assessment Approach

Abstract

Solvent-based CO2 capture technologies hold promise for future implementation but conventional solvents incur significant energy penalties and capture costs. Phase-change solvents enable a significant reduction in the regeneration energy but their performance has only been investigated under steady-state operation. In the current work, we employed a systematic approach for the evaluation of conventional solvents and mixtures, as well as phase-change solvents under the influence of disturbances. Sensitivity analysis was used to identify the impact that operating parameter variations and different solvents exert on multiple CO2 capture performance indicators within a wide operating range. The resulting capture process performance was then assessed for each solvent within a multi-criteria approach, which simultaneously accounted for off-design conditions and nominal operation. The considered performance criteria included the regeneration energy, solvent mass flow rate, cost and cyclic capacity, net energy penalty from integration with an upstream power plant, and lost revenue from parasitic losses. The 10 investigated solvents included the phase-change solvents methyl-cyclohexylamine (MCA) and 2-(diethylamino)ethanol/3-(methylamino)propylamine (DEEA/MAPA). We found that the conventional mixture diethanolamine/methyldiethanolamine (DEA/MDEA) and the phase-change solvent DEEA/MAPA exhibited both resilience to disturbances and desirable nominal operation for multiple performance indicators simultaneously.

Investigating best available technique for CO2 chemical absorption: solvent selection based on empirical surrogate model and exergy loss

“…DMCA, (Papadopoulos et al 2020b). The phase split solvent is proved to be advisable from economic (Zarogiannis et al 2020a), environmental (Shavalieva et al 2021) and operational (resilient to disturbances) (Zarogiannis et al 2020b) points of view. This study proposes a fast method that, based solely on experimental data of vapour-liquid equilibrium of CO 2 gas, compares alternatives with MEA in terms of required flowrate and energy consumption.…”

Special Issue “Climate Change, Carbon Capture, Storage and CO2 Mineralisation Technologies”

“…Pore-scale simulations showed that CWI altered the wettability of the carbonate rock from neutral to water-wet. Zarogiannis et al [2] employed a systematic approach to identify the impact that operating parameter variations and different solvents exert on multiple CO 2 capture performance indicators. Moita et al [3] examined experimentally the mineral carbonation of CO 2 in plutonic ophiolitic mafic rocks through a set of laboratory experiments on cumulate gabbro and gabbro-diorite specimens from the Sines Massif (Portugal).…”