Mitigation of CO2 Emissions from Large Industrial Sources

Abstract

Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) is considered as one of the options for reducing CO₂ emissions. CCS can be applied to large point sources of CO₂, such as power plants and in large industrial processes. The CO₂ capture is to produce a concentrated stream of high-pressure CO₂. The capture systems typically employ absorption of CO₂ from flue gases with CO₂ concentration up to 15 %. The oxygen-fuel systems use oxygen instead of air for fuel combustion to produce mainly water vapour and CO₂ (more than 80 %); the water vapour is easily removed by cooling. In precombustion capture, the fuel is converted to CO₂ (15 - 60 %) and H₂ at high pressure; then CO₂ is separated by adsorption or absorption. The emerging capture technologies require development of large-scale membrane separation processes, novel absorption solvents and sorbents, membrane-absorbent systems, high-temperature oxygen transport membranes for oxygen production, oxyfuelling via chemical looping, combined reaction/separation systems and new high-temperature materials.