An Alternative CO2 Capture with a Pressure Swing Amine Process Driven by Cryogenic Pumping with the Unused Cold Energy of Liquefied Natural Gas

This paper presents an alternative concept of CO2 capture that can substantially reduce the energy required for CO2 capture by utilizing unused cold energy. The heat of vaporization of liquefied natural gas (LNG), of which the boiling point is 110 K, is a possible candidate for unused cold energy. This technology is based on a pressure swing amine process combined with a sublimation tank to cool CO2 released from a desorber into dry ice by exchanging the LNG cold energy. The feature of this technology is that pure CO2 is recovered mostly by a pressure swing that decreases the pressure in the desorber utilizing a cryogenic pump with CO2 sublimation instead of a mechanical pump. We developed an amine-based absorbent that can realize the proposed process for exhaust gas from a fossil fuel-fired power plant. A process simulation indicated that the required energy is as low as 0.25 GJ/ton CO2 when both the absorber and the desorber are operated at around 313 K, the desorber pressure is reduced to 1 kPa, and the sublimation tank is operated at 150 K.