Techno-economic assessment of carbonate melt flue gas desulfurization process

Sulfur dioxide (SO2) is a pollutant that is mainly emitted in thermal coal-fired power plants, and it causes air pollution, which is required to be removed since it adversely affects the atmosphere environment. This study presents a novel approach to remove SO2 using carbonate melt by designing a flue gas desulfurization (FGD) process that uses a carbonate melt desulfurization (CMD) subsystem to remove > 99.9 wt% of SO2 and a carbonate melt regeneration (CMR) subsystem that recovers similar to 99 wt% of the melt. To reduce the operating costs of the proposed process, a heat-exchanger network was developed to use the waste heat that existed in the process. The levelized cost of the proposed FGD process using carbonate melt was determined as US$ 761/ton SO2 removed and is therefore cost-competitive with other SO2 removal technologies. Sensitivity analysis indicates that coal price is the main driver of levelized cost. (C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The study introduced a novel approach using carbonate melt for the removal of sulfur dioxide, achieving >99.9% removal rate and cost competitiveness by utilizing waste heat through a heat-exchanger network. The proposed flue gas desulfurization process using carbonate melt demonstrated efficient SO2 removal and cost-effective operation.