A Fair Comparison Between Five Co2 Capture Technologies
Authors: Martin Amélie Cécile , Lacouture François , Llewellyn Philip , Mariac Laurent 
Published: December 2021

To curtail the global warming increase to less than 2°C by 2050, the IPCC highlights Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) as a vital approach. TotalEnergies, following its ambition to become a responsible energy major, invests 10% of its R&D budget in CCUS to reduce the global process cost and help decarbonize our activities.

TotalEnergies is both working to decarbonize its own assets and developing a transport and storage infrastructure in Europe, with notably Northern Lights an example of note. It is equally of interest how this transport/storage infrastructure can be of use for other sectors and as such how various full CCUS chains may emerge. This explains the interest to develop techno-economic tools to evaluate CO2 capture processes applied to a wide range of industries. CO2 that is an integral part of the manufacturing process, is particularly difficult to abate in any future scenario, and one particular industry, which is facing such a challenge is the cement sector. CCUS has been identified as a potential solution to help with this issue. The present paper outlines the outcomes of a techno-economic study evaluating CO2 capture technologies based on cement factory retrofitting.

A literature review aimed at identifying the main characteristics of a typical European cement plant (capacity, process mode, pollutant composition in the flue gas…) was carried out. In this paper, a base case scenario of 90% absorption-based CO2 capture with monoethanolamine (MEA) is compared with four alternative CO2 capture approaches: –An absorption technology based on non-amine solvent.–An adsorption technology based on a Concentration Swing Adsorption process.–An oxyfuel technology derived from the R&D works performed during the CEMCAP project (European CO2 capture project).–A Calcium Looping technology with tail-end process configuration.

For each of these approaches, the whole carbon capture chain has been considered: this includes flue gas pretreatment, CO2 conditioning (including compression), steam generation, and utilities. Using process simulations, engineering studies have been carried out and have provided Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as Capital Costs, Operation Costs and Global Warming Potential (primary energy consumption per ton of CO2 avoided). It enabled mapping the technologies with regards to the cost and volume of CO2 avoided, as well as providing for each of the technologies the break-even point for an eventual CO2 tax.

Based on these KPIs, several facts have been highlighted: –The need to consider the whole process (including utilities, compression…) and not only the capture unit.–The development of new materials for adsorption and contactor design is already driving down costs.–The availability of waste heat can be a game-changer to implement a CO2 capture technology.–Technology comparisons are location and site-specific and cannot be taken as a basis for concept selection.

TotalEnergies approach to CCUS is collaborative. With these full-scale techno-economical assessments, generated via quotations from industrial equipment providers and using Engineering, Procurement and Construction standards, this not only gives a basis for comparison, but also assists our discussions with partners to identify key technological development pathways.