Selection of Solvents for Post Combustion CO_2 Capture and Mini Plant Experiments with MEA

摘要

Post combustion capture of carbon dioxide is the only technique that can be rapidly and safely employed for substantially reducing carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants and may also be the best choice for power plants to be built in the near future. For large scale post combustion capture, absorption is the method of choice. The key question of the absorption desorption technique for removal of carbon dioxide from flue gases is not its technical feasibility or conceptual process design but process economics, which again are dominated by the choice of the solvent. In the framework of the integrated project CO_2-CASTOR [1] a consistent criterion for comparison of solvents based on thermodynamic equilibrium data has been developed and applied to a list of candidate solvents. A ranking of these solvents in relation to the well known solvent monoethanolamine (MEA) was generated. The method and the results are presented. After the solvent selection procedure based on lab experiments is completed the operation of the absorption desorption process has to be proven for the most promising solvents in a lab scale plant and in a pilot plant. For that purpose a gas fired mini plant with complete absorption desorption cycle was built at University of Stuttgart, which is described in this paper. Results from the mini plant operation with the reference solvent MEA are presented on the poster. The experiments with the new solvents will start only after GHGT-8.