Abstract:
Excessive CO
2 emissions have triggered a severe climate crisis, with emissions from coal-fired power plants accounting for a significant proportion. Hence, research into flue gas carbon capture has become critical. Chemical absorption, due to its mature technology, holds promise as one of the technologies for large-scale carbon emission reduction applications. However, its further development is constrained by high energy consumption and investment costs. In traditional Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) processes, the capture and utilization steps are often conducted separately. Researchers have optimized the capture process by developing new absorbents and energy-saving processes while also developing more efficient and secure CO
2 utilization and storage technologies. However, individually optimizing each process leads to diminishing returns in energy efficiency. Therefore, researchers are considering the economic and energy benefits of integrating carbon capture and utilization technologies. Some scholars propose using electrochemical conversion instead of traditional absorbents for regenerating towers, integrating CO
2 capture and electrochemical conversion for utilization. Based on traditional MEA wet capture processes, a modeling analysis of Integrated Carbon Capture and Utilization (ICCU) using organic amine electrolytes was conducted using Aspen Plus, and a technical and economic analysis of the two processes was performed. The results show that compared to conventional CCU processes, the ICCU process improves CO
2 conversion rates and CO yields by 6% and 33%, respectively. Additionally, the energy efficiency of the ICCU process (38.94%) is slightly higher than that of the CCU process (37.8%). However, with the corresponding increase in electrolysis energy consumption, the overall improvement in energy efficiency is not significant. Sensitivity analysis of the electrolysis temperature reveals a decreasing trend in energy efficiency for both processes with increasing temperature, although the efficiency of the ICCU process remains higher. Moreover, the cost of the ICCU process increases continuously, with a temperature increase of 5°C resulting in a 2% cost increase. Overall, the ICCU process has certain advantages in terms of total cost (
6399.17 yuan/t), with a reduction in system energy consumption being a key factor in further cost reduction. In conclusion, the ICCU process achieves some improvement in economic and energy benefits.