Three gas separation technologies,chemical absorption,membrane separation and pressure swing adsorption,are usually applied for CO2 capture from flue gas in coal-fired power plants.In this work,the costs of the three technologies are analyzed and compared.The cost for chemical absorption is mainly from $30 to $60 per ton(based on CO2 avoided),while the minimum value is $10 per ton(based on CO2 avoided).As for membrane separation and pressure swing adsorption,the costs are $50 to $78 and $40 to $63 per ton(based on CO2 avoided),respectively.Measures are proposed to reduce the cost of the three technologies.For CO2 capture and storage process,the CO2 recovery and purity should be greater than 90%.Based on the cost,recovery,and purity,it seems that chemical absorption is currently the most cost-effective technology for CO2 capture from flue gas from power plants.However,membrane gas separation is the most promising alternative approach in the future,provided that membrane performance is further improved.
YANG Hongjun FAN Shuanshi LANG Xuemei WANG Yanhong NIE Jianghua
Gas hydrate is a new technology for energy gas（methane/hydrogen）storage due to its large capacity of gas storage and safe.But industrial application of hydrate storage process was hindered by someproblems.For methane,the main problems are low formation rateand storage capacity,which can be solved by strengthening mass andheat transfer,such as adding additives,stirring,bubbling,etc.Onekind of additives can change the equilibrium curve to reduce the formation pressure of methane hydrate,and the other kind of additivesis surfactant,which can form micelle with water and increase the interface of water-gas.Dry water has the similar effects on the methanehydrate as surfactant.Additionally,stirring,bubbling,and sprayingcan increase formation rate and storage capacity due to mass transferstrengthened.Inserting internal or external heat exchange also canimprove formation rate because of good heat transfer.For hydrogen,the main difficulties are very high pressure for hydrate formed.Tetrahydrofuran（THF）,tetrabutylammonium bromide（TBAB） andtetrabutylammonium fluoride（TBAF） have been proved to be able todecrease the hydrogen hydrate formation pressure significantly.
Capture of CO2 by hydrate is one of the attractive technologies for reducing greenhouse effect.The primary challenges are the large energy consumption,low hydrate formation rate and separation efficiency.This work presents a new method for capture of CO2 from simulated flue gasCO2(16.60%,by mole) /N2 binary mixture by formation of cyclopentane(CP) hydrates at initial temperature of 8.1°C with the feed pressures from 2.49 to 3.95 MPa.The effect of cyclopentane and cyclopentane/water emulsion on the hydrate formation rate and CO2 separation efficiency was studied in a 1000 ml stirred reactor.The results showed the hydrate formation rate could be increased remarkably with cyclopentane/water emulsion.CO2 could be enriched to 43.97%(by mole) and 35.29%(by mole) from simulated flue gas with cyclopentane and cyclopentane/water(O/W) emulsion,respectively,by one stage hydrate separation under low feed pressure.CO2 separation factor with cyclopentane was 6.18,higher than that with cyclopentane/water emulsion(4.01) ,in the range of the feed pressure.The results demonstrated that cyclopentane/water emulsion is a good additive for efficient hydrate capture of CO2.
