SOLAR-ASSISTED CO2 CAPTURE WITH AMINE AND AMMONIA-BASED CHEMICAL ABSORPTION: A Comparative Study.

Intensive energy penalty caused by CO2 separation process is a critical obstacle for retrofitting power plant with carbon capture technology. Therefore, the concept of utilizing solar energy to assist solvent regeneration for post-combustion carbon capture power plant is proposed recently as a promising pathway to compensate the efficiency reduction derived from CO2 capture process. However, the feasibility of solar-assisted post-combustion technologies largely depends on the types of CO2 absorbent, categories of solar thermal collectors, areas of solar field, and the integration of thermal energy storage system. Therefore, this paper conducts a comparative analysis on monoethanolamine-based and NH3-based solar-assisted post-combustion power plants employing two types of solar collectors, i.e the vacuum tube and the parabolic through collector, with climate data of Tianjin City, China. Levelized costs of electricity and cost of CO2 removed are comparatively studied for both solar-assisted post-combustion configurations. Results show that the proposed solar-assisted post-combustion configurations are economically viable when the price of vacuum tube is lower than 86.64 $/m2 and 117.29 $/m² for the monoethanolamine-based and NH3-based solar-assisted postcombustion power plant, respectively. Meanwhile, the price of parabolic through collector should be less than 111.12 $/m² for the monoethanolamine-based and 114.51 $/m² for the NH3-based solar-assisted post-combustion power plant. It is indicated that employing the vacuum tube for chilled NH3-based solar-assisted post-combustion power plant offers a promising approach to reduce the energy penalty with attractive economic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]