Techno economic evaluation of amine based CO2 capture: impact of CO2 concentration and steam supply

The timing and selection of CO2 sources will affect the cost of achieving projected CCS based emission reductions. Performed process simulations and cost estimations clearly point out the impact of CO2 concentration and steam supply when capturing CO2 from an atmospheric gas stream with MEA-based chemical absorption. An incremental increase in CO2 concentration reduces both operating and investment costs, mainly due to lower energy consumption and reduced equipment capacity. Reduced investment costs dominate the sharp decline in net present value of costs when increasing CO2 concentration from 2.5% to 10%, while a more moderate cost decline is present when going from 10% to 20% CO2. The impact of steam cost is evident for all studied CO2 concentrations. The cost sensitivity illustrate how important it is to understand the dynamics of cost components when selecting sources appropriate for CCS or struggle to improve performance of capture processes. This work contribute to highlight the relative importance of CO2 concentration and steam supply, realizing that final selection of CO2 source for CCS will involve addition decision variables. (C) 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of SINTEF Energi AS