Development of post-combustion CO2 capture with CaO/CaCO3 looping in a bench scale plant

Abstract

Several systems for CO2 capture using CaO as regenerable sorbent are under development at Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). CaO/CaCO3 looping of carbon dioxide capture system can also be used for both pre-combustion and post-combustion carbon dioxide capture. At present, ITRI has established a post-combustion 1 kW CaO/CaCO3 looping of carbon dioxide capture system device in Taiwan. The carbonator is for the bubbling fluidized bed and the calciner is for the moving bed. The device made up 0.1 kg/hour of new CaO which has been under 57 hours of continuous operation. Capture efficiencies above 99% have been obtained under realistic flue gas conditions in the carbonator reactor. In the future, power generation, petrochemical industry and steel and iron industries are the first to be considered for reduction of CO2 emissions. Our goal is to establish a 1 MW (5 thousand tons of CO2 every year) pilot plant in 2011, 10 to 30 MW (50 to 150 thousand tons CO2 every year) demonstration plant in 2020 and a commercial plant in 2027 for post-combustion capture. In addition, ITRI has to research and develop the CO2 capture technologies from flue gases including Gasification or Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC), CaO/CaCO3 looping and innovative meso-porous nanomaterials for CO2 adsorption.