NAMS 2002 Workshop - ICOM 2008

Gas Separation III – 4
Wednesday July 16, 11:15 AM-11:45 AM, Kaua’i
A Membrane Process to Capture CO2 from Power Plant Flue Gas
T. Merkel (Speaker), Membrane Technology and Research, Menlo Park, California, USA -
tcmerkel@mtrinc.com
H. Lin, MTR, Menlo Park, California, USA
S. Thompson, MTR, Menlo Park, California, USA
R. Daniels, MTR, Menlo Park, California, USA
A. Serbanescu, MTR, Menlo Park, California, USA
R. Baker, MTR, Menlo Park, California, USA
The use of coal as fuel to make power inevitably produces carbon dioxide (CO2)
as a byproduct. In the future, this CO2 must be captured and sequestrated. A
number of technologies are being evaluated for CO2 capture. Membrane
technology is an attractive approach because of its inherent advantages such as
high energy efficiency, a small footprint, environmentally friendly operation (no
chemicals), mechanical simplicity, and good reliability.
We have developed new CO2 selective membranes and process designs to
recover CO2 from power plant flue gas. These membranes have CO2
permeances 10 times higher than conventional commercial membranes
combined with high CO2/N2 selectivities. Bench scale test results on the
membrane and modules will be discussed. Sensitivity studies will illustrate the
optimal membrane properties for this application. System designs and
simulations for a 500 MWe power plant will be shown to illustrate the effect of
operating conditions (such as required CO2 recovery) on the cost of CO2 capture.
Based on the best system design developed, achieving 90% CO2 recovery
requires 18% of the power produced by the power plant.
In general, removal of CO2 from coal power flue gas is technically feasible with
current membranes, but remains economically challenging. Higher flux
membranes and low-cost ways of packaging them in large modules will improve
the competitiveness of this separation approach. Also key to further development
of this technology will be collaboration of membrane system producers and coal
power plant designers.