Techno economic evaluation of amine based CO₂ capture: impact of CO₂ concentration and steam supply

The timing and selection of CO₂ sources will affect the cost of achieving projected CCS based emission reductions. Performed process simulations and cost estimations clearly point out the impact of CO₂ concentration and steam supply when capturing CO₂ from an atmospheric gas stream with MEA-based chemical absorption. An incremental increase in CO₂ concentration reduces both operating and investment costs, mainly due to lower energy consumption and reduced equipment capacity. Reduced investment costs dominate the sharp decline in net present value of costs when increasing CO₂ concentration from 2.5% to 10%, while a more moderate cost decline is present when going from 10% to 20% CO₂. The impact of steam cost is evident for all studied CO₂ concentrations. The cost sensitivity illustrate how important it is to understand the dynamics of cost components when selecting sources appropriate for CCS or struggle to improve performance of capture processes. This work contribute to highlight the relative importance of CO₂ concentration and steam supply, realizing that final selection of CO₂ source for CCS will involve addition decision variables. Copyright © 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.