Week 3 – Session 17

Carbon capture

Jean-Pierre DEFLANDRE

MOOC ENERGY TRANSITION

IFP SCHOOL
Introduction
Carbon capture concerns different technologies to avoid CO2 emissions from
industrial sites, such as refineries, petrochemical , power, cement, steel, pulp and
paper plants.

CO2 emissions result from the combustion of fossil fuels, biofuels and biomass to
deliver heat or from the industrial process itself. For example hydrogen production or
cements production also generate CO2.

FIGURE 1: CO2 EMISSIONS SOURCES IN THE INDUSTRIAL SECTOR .

So different types of industrials sites are concerned, representing different capture

contexts, and at least different processing costs. In addition, we have to consider
two scenarios; existing plants or factories, and future ones. In the first scenario we
have to remediate while for the second one we have to improve technologies not to
have CO2 emissions. In each case, there is place for Innovation! (Figure 2).

FIGURE 2: EXISTING AND NEW PLANTS OR FACTORIES SCENARIOS: NEEDS FOR INNOVATION.

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Nowadays three main routes exist to capture, or avoid CO2 emissions: post-
combustion, oxy-combustion, and pre-combustion (Figure 3).

FIGURE 3: CAPTURE ROUTES

The post-combustion route

The post-combustion process (Figure 4), consists in capturing CO2 after combustion in
the exit flue gas, by a physical method (adsorption on a solid or using a permeation
membrane), or with a chemical one. In practice, the chemical way is used.

The chemical approach consists in absorbing the carbon dioxide, using an amine-
based solvent, regenerated and recycled in a reactor, while the CO2 is sent for
being used or stored. It requires a lot of energy, and remains quite costly.

It is the option commonly used to separate CO2 from natural gas, when its
concentration is above gas network tolerance.

FIGURE 4: POST- COMBUSTION CAPTURE ROUTE

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This technique is well adapted to capture CO2, in a CO2-lean flux, as in a combustion
flux where CO2 content is around 10% (Figure 5). 90% of the flux, is not concerned by
the capture process but it has to be managed! Note that it is Nitrogen for 72 %.

FIGURE 5: POST- COMBUSTION CAPTURE TYPICAL GAS FLUX COMPOSITION .

A lot of research is still ongoing to improve efficiency while reducing costs in the
different application scenarios. Let’s go back to the technique in more details.

After being cleaned from NOx, SOx and particles, the combustion gas flux enters the
absorber column, containing an amine-based solvent (Figure 6), generally a
monoethanolamine (MEA) or diethanolamine (DEA) solvent.

There, CO2 is caught by the solvent through the surface exchanger as illustrated
here. CO2-saturated MEA, can be regenerated in a stripper, and the amine solvent
can be recycled into the absorber (Figure 7). After water separation, the CO2 can
be isolated and managed for re-use or at least storage.

FIGURE 6: POST- COMBUSTION CHEMICAL CAPTURE USING AN MEA SOLVENT

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 FIGURE 7: POST- COMBUSTION CHEMICAL CAPTURE : SOLVENT REGENERATION

The technique allows to capture 75 to 90 % of the CO2 present in the combustion gas
flux with a relative CO2 purity of 90%.

The technique is mature and exists industrially (have a look to the bonus). As we
already mentioned, different amine-based solvents are available, but optimization is
case to case. At least this technique can be easily deployed on existing industrial
plants, allowing capturing 80 to 90% of the CO2 content of the few-percent
concentration CO2 flux.

Recent R&I works, aim at reducing energy consumption, looking for industrial
processes, at much lower costs as presented in the EU CASTOR project bonus.

Another innovative approach, is to use demixing solvents and to only regenerate the
CO2-rich saturated phase, while recycling the CO2-lean phase in the absorption
column (Figure 8).

FIGURE 8: POST- COMBUSTION CHEMICAL CAPTURE : DEMIXING SOLVENT TECHNIQUE (SOURCE IFPEN)

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The oxy-combustion route
The second route is the oxy-combustion one. It solves the problem of working on a
diluted CO2 concentration, by replacing air by pure oxygen in the combustion
process. This operation is commonly performed by making a cryogenic distillation of
the air. Then O2 can be separated from N2 and other gases and is directly used for
the combustion.

FIGURE 9: O XY- COMBUSTION GAS FUX COMPOSITION

It is the option that has been used in the Lacq-Rousse industrial CCS pilot, run by Total
a few years ago (watch the corresponding bonus).

A very innovative oxy-combustion approach is the chemical looping oxy-combustion

technique developed by IFP Energies nouvelles and Total (Figure 10). Here a metal
oxide, is used to catch oxygen from air in a first reactor, and is recycled after fuel
combustion in a second reactor. As in the previous technique, water cooling makes
CO2 to be isolated for storage, with the strong advantage to require less energy.

FIGURE 10: C HEMICAL LOOPING OXY- COMBUSTION PRINCIPLE (SOURCE: IFPEN-TOTAL).

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This technique is integrated into the CHEERS European project leaded by SINTEF
Energy Research, whose aim is to demonstrate a disruptive technology, designed to
capture industrial CO2 emissions more efficiently, at a more competitive cost.

The model stage of the CHEERS project, is aimed at validating the technology,
before building a demonstration unit to validate the performance of the process, on
a pre-industrial scale. Constructed in a technical center run by Chinese energy
company, Dongfang Boiler Co, the unit with a capacity of at least 3 MWth, will be
the most powerful in the world. It is operated with petcoke, a refining industry
residue, that will be recovered to produce steam and electricity. If the research and
innovation project proves successful, the first fully operational industrial facility, could
be a reality by 2025.

There are two advantages associated with Chemical looping oxy-combustion: a low
energy penalty because the oxygen is separated from air by means of a metal
oxide, and the option to treat a bigger feedstock variety: natural gas, heavy fuel,
coal, biomass or even petcoke, as envisaged for the CHEERS project.

The pre-combustion route

Pre-combustion capture, is the third route. It consists in using the technique of
generating syngas (a mix of H2, CO and CO2) from coal or natural gas (Figure 11).
However a specific stage is added, where water is used to transform produced CO,
into CO2 for carbon capture. The initial target of generating syngas is generally to
produce hydrogen; to produce one ton of hydrogen, up to 9 to 10 tons of CO2 are
roughly generated, by this process.

FIGURE 11: PRE- COMBUSTION CO2 CAPTURE PRINCIPLE (SOURCE: GLOBAL CCS I NSTITUTE ).

Applying the technique to new power plants (coal, biomass or gas fuelled) allows
having H2 for clean burning, and CO2 for storage or use. At least, the technique also
allows to obtain decarbonized H2, if CO2 is effectively stored, which is nowadays not
the common case.

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Conclusion
To conclude, depending on the context, three main routes exist to capture CO2:

The post-combustion option is already use for industrial CO2 capture. Here, in
general, CO2 is chemically captured by solvent absorption. It could be also
physically captured by adsorption on a solid or by using a permeation membrane.
The post-combustion technique can be implemented on existing plants.

In Oxy-combustion techniques, the exit flux gas does not contain any more nitrogen
and so the CO2 capture process consists mainly in condensing water.

With pre-combustion techniques carbon is chemically removed under CO2 within a

shift reactor to form the input fuel and at least hydrogen is burned with air delivering
only water and nitrogen.

These two other routes need to adapt and modify the combustion process. They
address new equipment's mainly or retrofitted plants or industrial sites in general.

Whatever is the technique, a lot of innovative researches, are ongoing to reduce

costs while improving efficiency for each application case.

References
• IFP Energies nouvelles https://www.ifpenergiesnouvelles.com/innovation-and-
industry/our-expertise/climate-and-environment/co2-capture-storage-and-
use/our-solutions
• Global CCS Institute https://hub.globalccsinstitute.com/publications/co2-
capture-technologies-pre-combustion-capture-0

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