Uso da modelagem e simulação à análise de plantas de captura de CO2: dimensionamento e economia do processo

Abstract

A significant proportion of power generation comes from coal combustion processes and therefore represents one of the largest point sources of CO2 emissions worldwide. One of the best options for utilizing existing infrastructure is to add a separation process to the flue gas, a practice known as Post-Combustion Capture (PCC). This work carried out an analysis of post-combustion CO2 capture plants through modeling and simulation, performing the sizing of the main equipment of the units and evaluating the economy of the process. The results were obtained through the Aspen Plus® software, performing simulations of three configurations of an existing PCC, obtaining the sizing of the main equipment for the three cases, as well as an economic evaluation of each of the plants was also obtained. It was possible to observe that the stripper column is responsible for approximately 30-50% of the total cost of equipment and the thermal load responsible for approximately 40% of the costs generated by the plant. Finally, the performance of the percentages of composition present at the output of the condenser were similar for the three cases, thus making it necessary to obtain better estimates to determine the categorical costs involved in this design.