Since the industrial revolution, the world has witnessed a sizable surge in the concentration of atmospheric GHG (Greenhouse gas). In fact, GHG emissions have increased exponentially every year – while the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 325.68 ppm in 1970, it shot up at a staggering 26% and reached 416.45 ppm in 2021. Thanks to anthropogenic activities that are throwing the entire ecosystem off balance at a breakneck pace.
With industry sector emissions being 5,981 MMT of CO2 equivalent, harnessing the power of renewable energies alone is not adequate – adopting carbon capture technologies is dire now.
But what are the types of carbon capture, and which one can best suit your industry’s specifications? Let’s go through it.
What is Carbon Capture?
CCS or CCUS, better known as Carbon Capture, Usage, and Sequestration, is a bridge technology that aims to pull CO2 out of factory combustion exhausts or the atmosphere and inject it into deep underground formations (CCS) or recycle it into various carbon-containing products (CCUS). The strategy behind CCS or CCUS technology is to trap CO2 produced in industrial processes or power plants so that it cannot be spewed into the atmosphere.
Is Carbon Capture Possible?
Yes, carbon capture is technically possible. It’s no surprise that the earth has been depositing natural gas, oil, and even CO2 in natural pockets for millions of years.
Researchers have been working to invent innovative and economically feasible carbon capture techniques since 1980.
The USA is the pioneer in deploying CCS projects. Aroused by the energy crisis since the 1970s, the USA retrofitted carbon capture technologies in industries to trap around 24 million tons of CO2/year and injected it into their oil fields to stimulate production.
According to the Global Status of CCS 2021, global CCS capacity has surged by 32% and reached 116 Mtpa in 2020. The world now has 27 CCS projects in action and 108 plants in the pipeline. These plants are capable of stripping 40 million tonnes of CO2/year out of the atmosphere and large point sources (fuel-fired power plants, cement, steel, and fertiliser industries, etc.).
Why Is Carbon dioxide Capture So Important?
The world’s temperature has risen by 1-degree Fahrenheit over the last century, posing a great threat to the world’s ecosystems – a big thanks to GHG, more specifically, CO2 gas emissions emitted by fossil fuel-based power generation plants and industrial facilities. For example, fossil fuel combustion alone adds up to over 13 gigatons of CO2 each year.
The shrubs, trees, vines, and other plants can absorb the extra carbon from the atmosphere, but for how much longer? Further, most climatologists agree that we can’t plant enough, better say, quick enough to hit the carbon emissions reduction goal alone.
The recent climate crisis has triggered authorities worldwide to take immediate and all-inclusive actions and tackle global warming.
In such an alarming situation, carbon capture techniques have shown promising results. It can help the world attain deep decarbonization and go Net Zero, meeting the negative carbon target.
And to achieve the 2-degree goal of restricting global warming to well below 2°C or 1.5°C and reach net-zero by 2050 according to the famous Paris Agreement, we cannot but cut down on our carbon footprint and lower atmospheric CO2 volume by 5Gt. Thankfully carbon capture technology alone can strip out 14-17% of this 5GT CO2.
CCS is considered the most promising technology for curbing CO2 emissions during the transition period between today’s fossil-fuel-based economy and a low-carbon-based sustainable-energy era.
What are the Types of Carbon Capture
Let’s go through the types of carbon capture technologies.
Solvent-based Carbon Capture
Solvent-based carbon capture is the most used commercially available approach today. Solvents are liquified chemical mixtures specially manufactured to chemically absorb CO2 and separate it from a combustion exhaust blend. The process is based on absorption technology (mostly amine-based)- flue gas produced as by-products in industrial processes is transferred into the absorption chamber, and a solvent like MEA, MEDA, etc., chemically reacts with and binds to CO2 in the flue gas.
Once the absorption process ends, the ‘CO2-packed’ solvent is heated to emit a high purity CO2 stream and gets recycled to be used again. Solvent-based capture technique has been around for decades and is the most economic and sustainable option of Carpube capture, helping carbon-intensive industries head towards a net-zero future.
Benefits
- Retrofittable
- The capture rate is high.
- A well-developed technique that got optimised by undergoing 12 years of research and experiments.
Disadvantages
- Large plant footprint
- Solvent degradation
Sorbent-based Carbon Capture
It is another retrofittable technology used in regenerative systems to strip Carbon dioxide out of flue gas. Sorbents are solid-phase, porous materials like metal-organic frameworks, zeolites, mesoporous silicas, etc., that adsorb gaseous CO2 onto their solid surface. After CO2 adsorption ends, the ‘loaded’ sorbent is heated or undergoes a pressure reduction process to force the adhering Carbon dioxide off the solid and turn it into the concentrated gaseous form again.
Benefits
- Adsorbs CO2 without forming chemical bonds
- No use of toxic materials
- Energy efficient
Disadvantages
- Cost/ton surges with higher flow rates
Membrane Capture
In this process, CO2 is pulled out of other fuel gases by using engineered membrane walls. These walls selectively let gas molecules diffuse through and depending on differential mass transfer rates of CO2 and other fuel gases across the membrane material, isolate CO2.
Benefits
- small footprint
- modular
- appropriate for offshore injection
Disadvantages
- moisture-sensitive and may require a molecular sieve dryer
- Not for low-partial pressure CO2
Cryogenic Separation
In this process, the gas stream is refrigerated, liquified, and heated at the boiling point of each gas to pull CO2 out of a high purity gas stream.
Benefits
- It has the potential to check CO2 emissions from fossil-fired power plants by 95–99% at half the cost and energy consumed in current carbon capture methods
- can also extract other toxic gases like SOX, NOX, and mercury
Disadvantage
- Still at the early phase of development
Oxy-combustion Capture
The fuel is combusted in around 98% pure oxygen (diluted with recycled flue gases) instead of air (a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen). The outcome is a mix of water vapour and flue gas containing concentrated CO2 that sometimes needs further purification and compression for efficient CO2 isolation.
Advantages
- Cost-efficient
- Smaller footprint
- Higher capture rate
Disadvantage
- Requires oxygen separation and filtering from the air
Direct Air Capture
Direct air capture (DAC) means extracting atmospheric CO2 using a string of chemical and physical reactions. The filtered CO2 is then injected into underground geological formations and porous rocks or used to produce long-lasting materials like plastics or cement.
Advantages
- Requires a smaller overall footprint
Disadvantages
- Requires a large amount of energy to pull low-concentration CO2 out of the atmosphere
- Highly expensive
Challenges in Carbon Capture Technology
- Despite the expansion of CCS plants in the last few years, more CSS projects that can add 40Mtpa to well over 560 Mtpa to the existing capacity should be deployed by 2050 to achieve the net-zero goal – it’ll be an expensive project requiring 655-1280 billion upfront investment.
- CCS may seem to be encouraging the continued use of fossil fuels. But the truth is that we have to partially depend on fossil fuels for more decades to come until we can completely switch to non-carbon renewable energy sources cost-efficiently.
- Though CO2 is an inert, non-combustible, and non-poisonous gas, it can cause asphyxiation due to long-term leakage in the air or contaminate the groundwater and pose a severe health hazard. However, death caused by CO2 seepage is significantly low – 1 in 100 million.
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