Techno-Economic Analysis of Selexol and Sulfinol Processes for Pre-Combustion CO2 Capture

One of the reasons for global warming and climate change is the anthropogenic CO
2
release into the air, especially when low quality coal is used. So there is the basic need to mitigate the emissions of CO
2
to avoid the global warming. To decrease the amount of CO
2
being released into the air in near future, the carbon capture and storage is now considered an effective and practical way. Integrated gasification Combined cycle (IGCC) power plants are considered relatively advanced fossil fuel based power generation system due to higher net power efficiency, ease in CO
2
capture and cogeneration opportunities. Liquid absorption is the widely used and matured technology for gas separation. Physical solvents are mainly used for pre-combustion CO
2
capture. The main objective of this paper is to search the most suitable solvent or combination of their mixture. Performance comparison and economic evaluation for two different physical solvents including Selexol process and Sulfinol Process has been made for the optimal selection of the capture process. The performance of Sulfinol hybrid solvent (a mixture of Sulfolane, MDEA and H
2
O) is compared with the Single Stage Selexol process. When both the Dual Stage processes were compared, Dual Stage Selexol was found to be economical over Dual Stage Sulfinol process.