Energy analysis of CaCO3 calcination with CO2 capture

One method for reducing CO2, the green house gas emissions is to capture CO2 before it releases into the atmosphere and then sequestrate it. Active lime (main component, CaO) can be used to capture CO2 in the exhaust gas or in the reactor from fossil fuels utilization effectively. That is calcium oxide (CaO) absorbs CO2 to yield calcium carbonate (CaCO3) (Eq.(1)), then the CaCO3 is thermally decomposed to CaO again and release nearly pure CO2 (Eq. (2)) for sequestration.To obtain a nearly pure CO2 stream from CaCO3 decomposition, the heat for decomposing CaCO3 can be supplied by combusting fossil fuels, such as coal and natural gas, in a calciner with oxygen fuel combustion. The oxygen diluted by CO2 (CO2 cycle) or H2O (steam cycle), in order to obtain near pure CO2 stream from CaCO3 decomposition. In our previous studie s4-6, it was clarified that calcinations of limestone (main component, CaCO3) in a fluidized bed calciner can be performed in CO2 cycle atmosphere when the bed temperature was raised above 1293 K, whereas with 60% steam cycle in atmosphere, limestone can be decomposed at comparatively lower temperature, such as 1173 K. The decomposition conversions of the limestone were about 95% and 98%, in CO2 cycle and in steam cycle atmospheres, respectively. Reducing the calcinations temperature of limestone was helpful to produce more than 30% active CaO as shown in previous stud y4-6.In this study, the energy of CaCO3 calcination process by H2O (steam) cycle was analyzed and compared with CaCO3 calcination process by CO2 cycle. For process calculations, the mass and energy flows were calculated iteratively, based on the input and output balances, until err [(input–output)/input] was <0.01. Analysis showed that, although H2O (steam) cycle calcination had calcination energy more about 3.6% than CO2 cycle due to water evaporation latent heat loss, however, the calcination energy per active CaO was lowest for H2O (steam) cycle.