The 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference was recently held in Madrid, the capital of Spain, and 2020 will be the deadline for different countries to strengthen and implement their commitments to "intended nationally determined contributions" in accordance with the Paris Agreement. China actively responds to climate change, with many explorations and practices in different regions. For example, carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) is an important emission reduction technology for mankind to cope with climate change, but the application and promotion thereof is not very smooth. Guangdong has established an open-end technology test platform for this purpose and accumulated successful experience for commercial application.
Not long ago, the Guangdong carbon capture test project, the first Asian multi-technology open international carbon capture technology test platform, was officially put into operation at the Haifeng Power Plant under CR Power. Such project is also the first CCUS demonstration project for coal-fired power plants in South China.
According to estimates, after operation, the project can capture about 20,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year, which, after purification, can meet the needs for food processing and industrial use and will be used for the first domestic CO2 offshore storage safety and leakage monitoring research project. At the same time, the flexible replacement and use of multiple amine solutions can be realized, and multiple carbon capture technology suppliers can be provided with technical services for fair testing of the performance of their products.
In order to unveil the mystery of the project, the reporter recently visited the Haifeng Power Plant and had in-depth interviews on the project's technology and operation.
Carbon capture: an emerging and economically feasible CO2 emission reduction technology
Urgent need for carbon emission reduction in the coal-fired power industry
What is CCUS? Generally speaking, it is a process of collecting the CO2 generated in the production process and storing and utilizing the CO2 by various ways to avoid its emission into the atmosphere. As an emerging CO2 emission reduction technology, this technology is considered to be the most economical and feasible method for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating global warming on a large scale in the future.
According to the 2017 simulation analysis of the International Energy Agency (IEA), if the emission reduction target is set to limit the global temperature rise within 2℃ in 2060 and reduce more than two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions, then the CCUS technology is expected to contribute 14% of CO2 emission reductions.
"As the only means of existing coal-fired power plants for reducing CO2, the CCUS technology has special significance to countries such as China, where coal is the dominant energy, and the importance and urgency of having CCUS in the domestic coal-fired power industry is increasing."Li Chao, the operation director of the Guangdong Carbon Capture Technology Center, said that in the process of developing into a national low-carbon demonstration province, Guangdong is also actively promoting CCUS technology research and development and industrialization. The construction of the Guangdong carbon capture test platform was jointly participated in by the China-UK (Guangdong) CCUS Centre, China Energy Engineering Group Guangdong Electric Power Design Institute, the University of Edinburgh and CR Power Group. China is the third country in the world following the United States and Norway that has an international test platform for such technology. Scientists from various countries are attracted to test and compare multiple carbon capture technologies in order to find the best technical solutions and materials and equipment for reducing the capture cost and energy consumption.
Compatible with multiple carbon capture technologies
Pick the most suitable carbon capture technology for power plants from multiple technologies
The reporter learned from the CR Haifeng Power Plant that the center includes a test platform area (pretreatment unit, carbon capture unit, compression and purification unit, and CO2 storage unit), a chemical laboratory, and a technology and international exchange center. Two sets of parallel carbon capture devices are constructed for the phase I project of the center: a set of compatible amine solution chemical process capture unit and a set of compatible membrane separation physical process capture unit.
Li Chao introduced that technical screening was started for the phase-I project of the carbon capture technology center in 2014, and 5 technologies were initially selected among 14 carbon capture technologies, including physical adsorption, chemical absorption and membrane separation. After the second round of screening, it was finally determined that the amine solution absorption and membrane separation carbon capture technologies were selected as the first batch of testing technologies for the platform.
The main principle of the so-called amine solution carbon capture process is importing the flue gas of the pretreatment system into the absorption tower, and capturing 90% of the CO2 in the flue gas after counter-current contact with the lean amine solution; and obtaining CO2 with a purity of 99% after going through the desorption tower. Desorption makes the CO2-rich amine solution into a lean amine solution, which can be returned to the absorption tower for recycling.
The membrane separation method mainly depends on the difference in selectivity and permeability of the gas molecules in the flue gas to separate and purify CO2. The pressure difference is the driving force for membrane separation. Due to the compact arrangement of the membrane separation device and the modular installation, the capture system can be easily retrofitted in the future and has a small footprint. The carbon capture process is completely driven by electricity, involves no chemical reactions, and is more environmentally friendly. This project is the largest membrane capture device for CO2 capture in China and the three-grade membrane separation carbon capture technology that is first applied in the world.
"The CO2 captured from the flue gas is sent to a downstream compression purification device to produce food-grade or industrial-grade liquid CO2, which is then piped to a CO2 storage tank for sale or further carbon utilization research."Li Chao told the reporter that the designed CO2 capture capacity in phase I totaled 20,000 tons/year. The phase-I project aims to test and select the most suitable carbon capture technology for the power plant, and provide support for the follow-up phase-II project (the million-ton CCUS demonstration project of the CR Haifeng Power Plant) and other large-scale carbon capture and storage demonstration projects in the future.
"The platform reserves test interfaces and test sites for future testing of other innovative carbon capture technologies such as physical adsorption technology."Li Chao said.
Finding the best solution to carbon capture
The project does not aim to maximize profit, but aims to maximize the sharing of test data and CCUS talent training
"With the continued steady coal consumption, the emerging CCSU technology must be used in order to achieve the climate action goals."Zheng Yufeng, a technician of the CR Power Haifeng Power Plant, said that the project does not take profit maximization as a commercial goal, but rather publicly introduces new carbon capture technologies and cooperative entities for testing and demonstration, and seeks the best solution to the reduction of the costs and technical risks in carbon capture projects, so as to advance the CCUS commercialization.
"Although CCUS is recognized as an important technology to mitigate the greenhouse effect, its application and promotion is not smooth. Specifically, the relatively high cost of CCUS demonstration projects is the main reason hindering its development."Li Chao said that the current investment in the CCUS demonstration project amounted to RMB hundreds of millions, and under the existing technical conditions, the operating costs would increase by RMB140 to RMB600 per ton of CO2 captured after the introduction of carbon capture."Our current projects are basically of public welfare nature and difficult to make profits."He said.
The technical level of CCUS to be improved is another obstacle to its development. In China, the CCUS test and demonstration is still in its infancy and lacks large-scale, full-process demonstration experience. Especially under the existing CCUS technology conditions, an enterprise deploying CCUS will increase the primary energy consumption by 10% to 20%, with large efficiency loss.
Solving these problems is also the purpose of the CR Power Haifeng Power Plant's CCUS demonstration project."The center is responsible for the public introduction of the CCUS technology, the technical testing and demonstration with cooperative entities, test data and intellectual property management, technology center promotion, operating capital preparation, and test results release."Zheng Yufeng said that as an open platform, the project will find solutions to cost reduction for mature technologies, promote the enlargement of innovative technologies, seek financing and policy support, lay a foundation for the future application of carbon capture technology in Asia, and ultimately seek business investors and financing solutions for the new CCUS technology.
According to the introduction, in the future, the test platform will continue to study the low-carbon industrial chain in Guangdong and even the whole country, and find enterprises, universities and institutions that it may cooperate with. Regular CCUS related seminars will be held to invite the relevant upstream and downstream enterprise representatives and experts to discuss potential opportunities and plans for project development. Meanwhile, complete an application for upgrading from a provincial engineering laboratory to a national one, make the carbon capture technology center become a high-quality and representative industry-university-research project, build a CCUS industrial chain in Guangdong and even the whole country, and integrate industry-university-research resources to promote technology demonstration.
Link: http://epaper.cenews.com.cn/html/2019-12/10/content_90100.htm