Differences on Capturing CO2 from the Combustion of Biomass and Coal by using Chemical Absorption

Even though all capture technologies developed for capturing CO2 from the utilization of fossil fuels can be applied to capture CO2 from the utilization of biomass, due to the obvious different properties, the performance can also be quite different. This work investigates the differences when using chemical absorption to capture CO2 from the combustion of recycled woods and coal, in order to provide suggestions on the integration of CO2 capture in the utilization of bioenergy and promote the application of bioenergy with CO2 capture and storage (BECCS). Two solvents, Monoethanolamine (MEA) and hot potassium carbonate (HPC), have been included. The results show that the flue gas (FG) from the combustion of recycled wood (RW) has a higher CO2 content, but lower O2, SOx and NOx content compared to the coal fired FG. In comparison to the coal fired FG, capturing CO2 from the RW fired FG requires less energy for both solvents, due to its higher CO2 content. The estimated oxidative and acid gas degradations are higher for FFCCS compared to BECCS, due to the higher O2, SOx and NOx contents in coal fired FG compared to those in the RW fired FG. For HPC process, FG compression work account for the largest part of the total energy consumption. Even though, the reboiler duty of the HPC process is lower than that of the MEA process, the total energy penalty is higher.