Carbon capture and utilisation technologies applied to energy conversion systems and other energy-intensive industrial applications

Reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from heat and power sector as well as from other energy-intensive industrial applications is of paramount importance today. Various carbon capture technologies can be applied to reduce the CO2 emissions from the polluting process industries. This paper is presenting, through various illustrative coal-based examples, the carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technologies used to reduce the carbon footprint of the overall processes. The evaluations were focused on the conceptual design and the technical & environmental assessment of CCUS technologies with potential applications in power generation, iron & steel, cement and chemicals (including captured CO2 utilisation for production of various chemicals e.g. methanol, substitute natural gas, synthetic fuel). Two reactive gas-liquid and gas-solid methods were evaluated through illustrative examples. The first evaluated CO2 capture option is based on gas-liquid absorption using chemical solvents (alkanolamines). The second capture option is based on calcium looping system. The carbon capture rate is set to 90%. Various coal-based processes were considered as illustrative examples e.g. combustion, gasification, cement production, integrated steel mill, coal to chemicals etc. The proposed conceptual designs were simulated; the mass & energy balances as well as the thermal integration tools were used to quantify the key technical and environmental performance indicators. The assessments show that CCUS technologies have significant advantages in reducing the environmental impact of energy-intensive industrial applications and simultaneously to produce useful products.