Process and Cost Analysis of a Biomass Power Plant with in Situ Calcium Looping CO₂ Capture Process

Abstract

A novel concept is presented to capture CO2 from a large-scale (>100 MWe) dedicated biomass-fired power plant by using CaO as the CO2 sorbent. Biomass is burnt in a circulating fluidized bed at sufficiently low temperature to allow in situ CO2 capture at atmospheric pressure. The product, CaCO3, is then calcined in an interconnected oxy-fuel combustor, or calciner, that delivers CO2 ready for subsequent purification, compression, and permanent geological storage. A detailed process analysis using Honeywell’s UniSim R400 is carried out to reveal process performance and economics of the proposed power plant which is compared against biomass-air-fired and biomass-oxy-fired power plants. A heat exchanger network is designed using a pinch analysis aimed at the recovery of the maximum amount of excess heat from high temperature gas and solid streams in the plant, while the recovered heat is transferred into a subcritical steam cycle for power generation. The entire process simulation also includes a CO2 purification and compression unit that allows reaching more than 95 mol % CO2 purity. The close similarity of the system with commercial coal based CFB power plants enables us to evaluate costs of electricity and CO2 avoided in detail. This process is capable of achieving 84% overall CO2 capture efficiency with additional cost of 43 €/ton CO2 avoided excluding green certificate and European Trading Scheme (ETS) CO2 incentives. If current typical values for these subsidies are included, the avoided cost can even take negative values. The biomass-air-fired plant becomes the most attractive option when only green certificates are introduced. The biomass-oxy-fired and in situ calcium looping plants largely improve their economics when ETS price for CO2 credits increases. The in situ calcium looping option becomes slightly more economical and more flexible to adapt to different market conditions affecting the economic incentives to use biomass for power generation when the biomass plant is colocated with an oxy-fired coal power plant.

Modelling CO 2 adsorption and separation on experimentally-realized B 40 fullerene

“…Apart from reducing CO 2 emission from human activities, carbon capture and storage (CCS) [4,5], or post combustion capture (PCC), is an alternative way to reduce the CO 2 concentration in the atmosphere and alleviate global warming [6][7][8]. As the key step of CCS, capture and separation of CO 2 has spurred much research interest in experiment and theoretical modelling [9][10][11][12]. The criteria for an ideal CO 2 sorbent are high capacity, high selectivity, fast adsorption/desorption kinetics, good mechanical properties, high hydrothermal and chemical stability, as well as low cost of synthesis [13].…”

A Review of Carbon Capture and Storage Project Investment and Operational Decision-Making Based on Bibliometrics

“…To achieve an average global warming target of 2 • C, BECCS needs to contribute 14 Gt of emission reduction during 2013 to 2050 [29]. Therefore, the emission reduction potential and economy of negative emission technologies have become the research hotspots in recent years [81,82]. Although the proportion of CO 2 emissions from cement plants (6%), refineries (5%), and iron and steel plants (5%) is small, the contribution to emission reduction is still considerable [77].…”

Biomass combustion with in situ CO 2 capture by CaO in a 300 kW th circulating fluidized bed facility

“…The fundamental advantage of the system of Figure 1 respect to stand alone oxy-fired scheme is that the O 2 consumption is about 1/3 of the equivalent oxy-fired system burning the same total flow of biomass and fuel. A recent economic and process analysis of the concept of Figure 1 (Ozcan et al, 2014) has revealed the technical and economic boundary conditions for this niche application of Calcium Looping and biomass firing in power plants to be economically viable. The close similarity of each of the main reactors in the system with commercial CFBC power plants enables an evaluation of electricity and CO 2 avoided cost (Ozcan et al, 2014) that indicates that this process achieves around 43 €/ton CO 2 avoided, only slightly lower than the cost of a stand-alone oxy-fired system burning biomass operating under comparable conditions.…”

“…A recent economic and process analysis of the concept of Figure 1 (Ozcan et al, 2014) has revealed the technical and economic boundary conditions for this niche application of Calcium Looping and biomass firing in power plants to be economically viable. The close similarity of each of the main reactors in the system with commercial CFBC power plants enables an evaluation of electricity and CO 2 avoided cost (Ozcan et al, 2014) that indicates that this process achieves around 43 €/ton CO 2 avoided, only slightly lower than the cost of a stand-alone oxy-fired system burning biomass operating under comparable conditions. However, a further advantage of this system is that it can be adapted to a wider range of regulatory conditions and avoided cost can even take negative values when there are economic incentives for the both the storage of CO 2 from biomass firing and green certificate for biomass use in air fired power plants.…”

“…The in-situ calcium looping option becomes more economical and more flexible to adapt to different market conditions than air-fired biomass plants and oxy-fired plants alone. This is particularly the case when the biomass plant is co-located with an oxy-fired coal power plant or a much larger post-combustion calcium looping plant supplying the CaO to the combustor carbonator (Ozcan et al, 2014).…”