Comparison of Solvent Development Options for Capture of CO2 from Flue Gases

Chemical absorption is widely regarded as the most commercially ready technology for postcombustion CO2 capture from large industrial emission sources. The benchmark solvent is monoethanolamine (MEA). Alternate solvents to MEA have been developed with improved properties such as solvent loading, regeneration energy, and absorption rate. Improvements in solvent properties can be challenging because of possible adverse interactions between solvent properties. Ideally improving all solvent properties and process designs concurrently is desirable to reduce the total cost of CO2 capture. The changes in cost of CO2 capture for postcombustion CO2 capture from a black-coal power plant using absorption are investigated using Monte Carlo simulations, where key solvent parameters are varied simultaneously. Different classes of solvents are considered covering aqueous and phase-change solvents in conventional and encapsulated solvent systems. The results show that it is not necessary for new solvents to have superior...