Dear user of the Technology data Catalogues. This is the newsletter about the Technology data Catalogues on energy production, supply, conversion, and more. If you are new to the topic of technology data you can always learn more and find the latest available versions of the Danish Technology data Catalogues here. You can find all published newsletters here.

An important addition is the new chapters on Carbon Capture Technology written by COWI. It provides data on three different carbon capture technologies: Amine-based post-combustion, oxy-fuel combustion, and Direct Air Capture (DAC). For the post-combustion and oxy-fuel carbon capture the focus is on retrofit solutions, i.e. installing carbon capture on existing point sources. 

Carbon capture is a process that recovers CO₂ from a source. The technologies described in the new addition use medium temperature heat and electricity as energy sources and can contribute to CO₂ reductions. Following the carbon capture, the concentrated CO₂ stream can e.g. be used as an input for different PtX-processes or can be stored permanently in the underground. A few technologies have been demonstrated in large scale, most notably amine-based carbon capture and oxy-fuel carbon capture, both of which capture CO₂ from point sources. Of the two technologies, amine post-combustion is better suited for retrofit. The Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology captures CO₂ from ambient air, which is more energy-intensive due to the lower CO₂ concentration. 

The chapters on Carbon Capture Technologies are published in the Catalogue for Industrial Process Heat and can be relevant for the industry sector, energy system analysts, and others. A guideline addition has furthermore been developed by Viegand Maagøe and COWI in order to incorporate this new technology category in the catalogue.

The two technologies amine post-combustion and oxy-fuel combustion are more developed, and therefore the sections about these two techniques cover further topics, such as application potential, typical capacities, space requirements, environmental aspects, and regulation ability, in the same way as described in the other Technology data Catalogues. 

Below is an extract from the new chapter on Carbon Capture Technologies, with one example of an operating carbon capture plant (the chapter contains more examples):

2 Amine Post-Combustion Carbon Capture Technology

2. 12 Examples of market standard technology

Work on scale-up and improvement of amine-based carbon capture technology gained momentum during mid 2000s due to the growing commercial interest for carbon capture. Several technology vendors (GE, Cansolv/Shell, Aker Solutions, MHI, Hitachi, Fluor, Linde/BASF, etc.) have erected large scale pilot plants in conjunction with power plants and demonstrated their technology. A few vendors have also delivered commercial plants for CO₂ utilisation in the chemical industry.

Below is listed one of the large amine-based carbon capture demo plants that has been erected. The Global Carbon Capture Institute also publishes an annual status report on CCS (ed. Carbon Capture and Storage) projects which provides an overview of projects (not limited to amine carbon capture technology) [22].

• Boundary Dam 1 Mtpa CO₂ capture demonstration plant, Canada (operational 2014 - present). First full-scale post-combustion amine plant retrofitted to a commercial operating boiler. About 90% of CO₂ is captured from a refurbished 150 MWe coal-fired unit at Saskpower's Boundary Dam power station. The CO₂ is compressed and transported in pipeline to a nearby oil field where it is sold for EOR (ed. Enhanced Oil Recovery). The amine carbon capture technology is provided by Shell Cansolv. The project also included a SO₂ removal process with amine, which is heat integrated with the CO₂ removal process. The net power output of the unit declined by 13.6% with the carbon capture (and SO₂ removal) retrofit, however this number includes the gains by turbine and boiler refurbishments. The project claimed negative media coverage from cost overruns and delays [22]. Following start-up, the plant suffered some issues with fly ash deposition and plugging of equipment as well as excessive amine degradation. This resulted in low availability in the first years and short deliveries of CO₂ to the oil companies, which triggered large penalties. Most of these issues have now been rectified and the plant performs stable although the captured amount is somewhat below design (May 2020, CO₂ capture past 12 months was 732.000 tons [23]).  
• 

Figure 2 4. Photo [56] of Saskpower 800 MWe Boundary Dam coal-fired power station where one of the four units was retrofitted with amine carbon capture in 2013.[...]

Future updates

Best regards,

The Technology data Catalogue team