ION Advanced Solvent CO₂ Capture Pilot Project

Technical Report · Fri Nov 30 04:00:00 EST 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1484045· OSTI ID:1484045

Brown, Alfred "Buz" ^[1]; Awtry, Andrew ^[2]; Meuleman, Erik ^[2]

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1. ION Engineering LLC, Boulder, CO (United States); ION Engineering LLC
2. ION Engineering LLC, Boulder, CO (United States)

This final report to DOE/NETL presents all the work and tests performed during ION Engineering’s (ION) carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture pilot test campaign: “ION Advanced Solvent CO₂ Capture Project”. This project is comprised of three budget periods (BP): BP1 – Design of a 0.6 MWe system, BP2 – 0.5 MWe National Carbon Capture Center (NCCC) Testing Campaign, and BP3 – 12 MWe Technology Center at Mongstad (TCM) Testing Campaign.

The program began in October 2013 and continued until December 2017. The campaign at NCCC, which took place from June to August of 2015, resulted in 1,116 operational hours where ~350 tonnes of CO₂ were captured from the 0.5 MWe coal-fired flue gas slipstream. The follow-up campaign at TCM took place from Oct 2016 to April 2017, where 2,775 hours of operation resulted in the capture of 14,820 tonnes of CO₂, which is a cumulative of capturing CO₂ from the natural gas-fired Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant, and a residue fluid catalytic cracker gas (RFCC) from Statoil at Mongstad.

ION has conducted a thoughtful, comprehensive, and successful program in close collaboration with all its partners. CO₂ was successfully removed and captured for extended periods of time using three gas sources (NCCC Coal-fired Power plant, TCM CHP flue gas with and without CO₂ recycle, and TCM RFCC flue gas with air dilution) at various slipstream flows ranging from 0.5 MWe to 12 MWe. The data gathered on its solvent continues to strengthen the development of ION’s advanced solvent and positive track record in executing on-site test campaigns in highly industrialized settings. These existing pilot plants do not include the necessary process modifications that ION requires to obtain the lowest possible regeneration energy; processes such as a cold-rich bypass and intercooling, would allow for lowering the demonstrated specific reboiler duty. The resulting data was also used to validate the process model, and, in the absence of testing on a custom test rig specifically designed for ION’s advanced solvent, the results of the process model have shown specific reboiler duties under 2.5 MJ/kg CO₂ (1075 BTU/lb CO₂). When these regeneration energies are factored into the Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA), where ION’s technology is compared to the DOE/NETL BBS Case 12, which integrates a highly optimized and commercially available CO₂ capture technology, ION’s technology shows:

38% incremental reduction in capital cost of CO₂ capture; 28% incremental reduction in annual operating and maintenance costs of CO₂ capture; and $35-44 per tonne of CO₂ capture, which is a 20% to 40% reduction in cost of CO₂ capture.

Throughout pilot testing, ION has confirmed its understanding of process improvements and analytics that will enable successful operation of its advanced solvent at significantly lower L/G circulation rates, packing heights and regeneration energies than MEA. ION has identified routes to further develop its technology and is looking forward to testing a fully optimized solvent and capture system in the near future.

• Research Organization: ION Engineering LLC, Boulder, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE)
• Contributing Organization: Sargent & Lundy, LLC.
• DOE Contract Number: FE0013303
• OSTI ID: 1484045
• Report Number(s): DOE-ION--FE0013303
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT
03 NATURAL GAS
20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS
42 ENGINEERING
CO2 Technology Centre Mongstad
Carbon Capture
Carbon Dioxide
Coal-fired Power Plant
Flue Gas
ION Engineering LLC
National Carbon Capture Center
Natural Gas Combined Cycle
Residue Fluid Catalytic Cracker
Techno-Economic Analysis