Capital costs and energy considerations of different alternative stripper configurations for post combustion CO2 capture

Capturing and storing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by power plants and factories before it is emitted to the atmosphere could play a major role in minimizing climate change. Among of the different technologies, aqueous amine absorption/stripping is a promising one. In this study 5 different configurations for aqueous absorption/stripping have been compared with regard to capital investment and energy consumption. The process simulations are made with the use of Unisim and ProTreat, while for the cost calculation relations from Turton et.al. 4 were used. We can’t identify that one single configuration is the best for all cases, because it depends on many parameters like energy and material costs, plant complexity, etc. The split-stream configuration with cooling of semi-lean amine stream has the minimum energy consumption, but the vapor recompression configuration is the optimum one because with a small increase in investment we can save significant amount of energy. The effect of heat integration between the compression section and the stripper also is considered for vapor recompression configuration. Reboiler energy may be saved with heat integration, however because of high temperature into the compressors the compression efficiency decreases. Also the capital cost and the complexity of the plant will increase. Heat integration between compression section and reboiler cause to increase water in produced CO2 and increase the corrosion problem.

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