CO2 capture technologies and shortcut cost correlations for different inlet CO2 concentrations and flow rates. part 1: Chemical absorption

Carbon capture is a fast-growing sector with increasing commercial interest, yet significant uncertainties remain regarding its real performances. While many publications report CO2 capture costs, which is one of the key performance indicators (KPIs) for capture technologies, there is a lack of harmonized cost estimation methods, making it difficult to compare technologies on a consistent basis. This has led to considerable discrepancies and inconsistencies across the literature. Moreover, capture costs strongly depend on process parameters such as CO2 concentration and flue gas flow rates, which results in capture costs across the literature often being incomparable. To address these issues, this paper presents a framework for fairly evaluating the capture cost of chemical absorption technology via shortcut cost correlations. Amine scrubbing is selected as a benchmark technology, with comprehensive validations to precisely depict capture costs across the ranges of CO2 concentrations (5–50 mol%) and feed flow rates (equivalent to a capture scale of 31–1250 kt/y). The proposed correlations can also handle different economic assumptions including utility costs, and estimation methodologies to accurately reflect final capital expenditures (CapEx) and operating expenditures (OpEx) under various industrial scenarios and operating conditions. The results of such easy-to-use correlations can serve as an important KPI in decision-making processes where CO2 capture implementation costs need to be rapidly assessed.