Oxyfuel carbonation/calcination cycle for low cost CO2 capture in existing power plants

Postcombustion CO2 capture is the best suitable capture technology for existing coal power plants. This paper focuses on an emerging technology that involves the separation of CO2 using the reversible carbonation reaction of CaO to capture CO2 from the flue gas, and the calcination of CaCO3 to regenerate the sorbent and produce concentrated CO2 for storage. We describe the application to this concept to an existing (with today’s technology) power plant. The added capture system incorporates a new supercritical steam cycle to take advantage of the large amount of heat coming out from the high temperature capture process (oxyfired combustion of coal is needed in the CaCO3 calciner). In these conditions, the capture system is able to generate additional power (26.7% efficiency respect to LHV coal input to the calciner after accounting for all the penalties in the overall system), without disturbing the steam cycle of the reference plant (that retains its 44.9 efficiency). A preliminary cost study of the overall system, using well established analogues in the open literature for the main components, yields capture cost around 16 €/ton CO2 avoided and incremental cost of electricity of just over 1 €/MW h e.