A compact CO2 capture process to combat industrial emissions

工业排放是大气二氧化碳的重要来源，英国必须解决这一问题，以实现其具有法律约束力的目标。来自工业的CO2排放通常来自许多小的、低浓度的来源，具有广泛的烟道气成分和杂质分布。例如，在炼油厂，CO2从许多工艺炉、制氢装置和发电厂排放，排放点分散在几平方公里内。如果采用集中式CCS工厂，将需要大型管道网络和压缩功率。此外，捕获单元将需要处理各种各样的杂质。这不是最佳的。相反，更有效的捕获工艺设计涉及位于现场不同位置的几个单独和定制的捕获单元，仅共享一个共同的高浓度CO2输出管道。因此，拥有几个紧凑灵活的捕获单元是有益的，这些单元具有低运营和资本成本以及高效率，能够利用来自不同工艺单元的废热。通过使用胺溶剂捕获CO2是大多数碳捕获工厂中采用的最成熟的技术，包括位于加拿大Boundary Dam的世界上第一个大规模CCS工厂。该技术被认为是下一代技术的参考。通过使用具有更高容量和/或更低再生/降解成本的替代胺或胺混合物进行增量改进是可能的。然而，在没有根本不同的设计的情况下，这种常规方法的主要问题仍然存在。它们包括（a）吸收器和解吸器中的低传质效率，导致设备尺寸大以及高资本和操作成本，（B）溶剂再生中的高能耗，导致非常高的能量损失和操作成本，（c）由浓缩胺溶液引起的腐蚀，这使得必须使用更昂贵的材料，（d）胺在100 ℃以上的热降解和氧化降解。更多的溶剂补充意味着高运营成本我们建议通过结合两种技术来应对这一挑战，旋转填充床吸收和微波辅助再生，这将使小型灵活的捕获设备能够安装在广泛的工业场所。与传统的吸收塔相比，旋转填充床塔的体积大幅减少了90%，而微波再生是在70 ℃下再生胺溶液的革命性方法。（而不是120 ℃），可以在没有温度波动的情况下运行，速度非常快，从而进一步显著降低资本成本（约50%），用于CO2解吸的显热，以及腐蚀和溶剂降解超过90%。在70 oC下的CO2解吸也使再生器能够使用低级工业废热。

Industrial emissions are an important source of atmospheric CO2 that must be tackled for the UK to meet its legally binding targets. CO2 emissions from industry occur typically from a number of small, low concentration sources with a wide range of flue gas compositions and impurity profiles. For example, in a refinery, CO2 is emitted from many process furnaces, hydrogen production units and power generation plant, and emission points are scattered over several km2. If a centralized CCS plant is applied, a large piping network and compression power will be required. Moreover, the capture unit would need to deal with a wide range of impurities. This is not optimal. Instead, a much more efficient capture process design involves several separate and bespoke capture units at different locations on site, sharing only a common high concentration CO2 export pipeline. It is therefore beneficial to have several compact and flexible capture units, with low operating and capital costs and high efficiency able to use waste heat from different process units.CO2 capture by using amine solvents is the most mature technology employed in most carbon capture plants, including the world's first large-scale CCS plant at Boundary Dam, Canada. This technology is considered a reference for next-generation technologies. Incremental improvements through the use of alternative amines or amine mixtures with higher capacity and/or lower regeneration/degradation costs are potentially possible. However, major problems with this conventional process remain without a fundamentally different design. They include (a) low mass transfer efficiency in the absorber and desorber, resulting in large equipment size and high capital and operating costs, (b) high energy consumption in solvent regeneration, causing a very high energy penalty and operating cost, (c) corrosion caused by concentrated amine solutions, which makes it necessary to use more expensive materials, (d) thermal and oxidative degradation of amines above 100oC. More solvent make-up means high operating costWe propose to meet this challenge by combining two technologies, rotating packed bed absorption and microwave-assisted regeneration, which will enable small and flexible capture devices to be installed at a wide range of industrial sites. A rotating packed bed column offers a dramatically reduced volume by 90% compared to a traditional absorption column, while microwave regeneration is a revolutionary method for regenerating amine solutions at 70oC (rather than 120oC) that can operate without a temperature swing and is very fast, leading to further significant reduction in capital costs (by around 50%), in the sensible heat used for CO2 desorption, and in corrosion and solvent degradation by over 90%. CO2 desorption at 70oC also enables the regenerator to use low grade industrial waste heat.