The ACP performance is determined in terms of CO2 capture rate and specific
reboiler duty. The CO2 capture rate (πΆπ2,πΆπ ) is determined from (Akram et al.,
2016):
πΆπ2,πΆπ (ππ ββ ) = (ππΆπ2π΄ππ ππβ ππΆπ2π΄ππ ππ’π‘). πππΆπ2/1000 (5.1)
where ππΆπ2π΄ππ ππ and ππΆπ2π΄ππ ππ’π‘ is the CO2 molar flowrate entering and leaving the
absorber in mol/h and πππΆπ2 is the CO2 molecular weight.
The reboiler duty (π π·) is calculated from (Akram et al., 2016):
π π· (ππ½ ββ ) = ππ»ππ. ππ. (Ξπ) (5.2)
where ππ»ππ is the pressurised hot water flowrate in kg/h, ππ is the specific heat capacity of water in kJ/kg K and Ξπ is the temperature difference between the pressurised hot water inlet and outlet temperature in K. The specific reboiler duty is calculated from (Akram et al., 2016):
ππππππππ ππππππππ ππ’π‘π¦ (ππ½ ππβ ) = (πΆππ π·
2,πΆπ ) /1000
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5.3 Results and discussion
The experimental results from both experimental campaigns are summarised in Appendix A.4. In both experimental campaigns, the solvent concentration was thought to be 40 wt% MEA, however, the measured concentrations were up to 6.8 and 9% lower for experimental campaigns 1 and 2, respectively.
In the work by Akram et al. (2016) they identified that the rich and lean solvent concentrations varied above or below the 30 wt% MEA investigated. These authors also attribute this to either evaporation losses or solvent degradation. Experimental work by Tait et al. (2018) at the PACT facilities used a 30 wt% MEA concentration and also observed varying amine concentration of 28-35%. These authors note that the synthetic flue gas mixture is unsaturated which means that the H2O content is
~1 vol%, leading to water losses in the absorber flue gas outlet stream (Tait et al., 2018).
In addition to the water losses resulting in varying solvent concentration, solvent degradation is a possible reason for the lower solvent concentrations reported in the results presented in Appendix A.4. In the literature, thermal and oxidative degradation of MEA in CO2 capture plants is widely reported (e.g. Bedell, 2009; Chi
and Rochelle, 2002; Davis and Rochelle, 2009; Du et al., 2016; Fredriksen and Jens, 2013; Gouedard et al., 2012; Sexton and Rochelle, 2011). Oxidative degradation typically occurs in the absorber where the flue gas O2 concentration is
the greatest. For example, in CCGTβs with ACP the flue gas O2 concentrations are
~12 vol% (IEAGHG, 2012a). However, this concentration is likely to reduce under S-EGR operation as shown in the following modelling studies. Diego et al. (2018, 2017b) investigated parallel and hybrid S-EGR configurations at commercial scale, where the flue gas O2 concentration reduced to 11.3 and 7.1 vol%, respectively.
Herraiz et al. (2018) also showed O2 concentrations in the flue gas stream varied
from ~10-11 vol% and 9 vol% for series and parallel S-EGR, respectively. The flue gas O2 concentrations at 80 kWe under S-EGR for the mGT experiments ranged
from 16.7-17.4 vol% (dry basis) and ~19 vol% under standard operation. The higher O2 concentrations in the mGT experiments are because of the much higher excess
air requirements than in commercial scale gas turbines, but still shows reduced O2
concentrations sent to the ACP under S-EGR. The synthetic flue gas O2
concentration sent to the absorber remained around 17 vol% throughout the experimental campaigns, representing similar concentrations to the mGT tests.
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Oxidative degradation occurs due to MEA solvent disintegration which is catalysed in the presence of dissolved metal ions such as iron via electron abstraction mechanisms (Bedell, 2009; Chi and Rochelle, 2002; Fredriksen and Jens, 2013; Goff and Rochelle, 2004; Gouedard et al., 2012; Sexton and Rochelle, 2011). The electron abstraction mechanism uses a free radical, for example Fe3+, which
eradicates an electron from N2 in the amine group (Goff and Rochelle, 2004;
Gouedard et al., 2012). The resulting amine radical is transferred (de-protonated) to form an imine radical, which leads to aldehyde and ammonia formation due to its reaction with H2O (Goff and Rochelle, 2004; Gouedard et al., 2012). The main MEA
degradation product is NH3, with subsequent degradation products being aldehydes
(Goff and Rochelle, 2004; Gouedard et al., 2012). In the presence of O2, these
products will form carboxylic acids due to the oxidization mechanism. The production of these acids leads to corrosion and fouling issues, which ultimately leads to increased operating costs. Furthermore, NH3 formation is greater at higher
MEA concentrations and the rate of degradation is linked to the solvent temperature and metal ion concentrations (Chi and Rochelle, 2002; Goff and Rochelle, 2004). As the lean solvent temperature remained at ~40Β°C for all the experiments, the effect of temperature on oxidative degradation will be the same, thus, oxidative degradation is likely due to the metal ion concentrations. The iron content was measured at the end of each test day, where the iron concentration increased from 9.16 mg/L (test day 1), 14.4 mg/L (test day 2) to 15.64 mg/L (test day 3), representing a 71% increase over the three day testing campaign. As noted above, the presence of dissolved metal ions leads to oxidative solvent degradation, hence, it is likely that this has contributed to lower solvent concentrations. Chi and Rochelle (2002) also noted that NH3 formation increases with increasing O2 concentration. The O2 and
NH3 concentrations reported in Tables 5.6 and 5.7 show this trend which also
supports that oxidative solvent degradation has led to reduced solvent concentrations.
Thermal solvent degradation typically occurs in the stripper and reboiler due to higher temperatures (Davis and Rochelle, 2009). Thermal degradation is also caused by operating at elevated stripper pressures, although this has been shown to reduce stripper energy requirements (Oyenekan and Rochelle, 2007, 2006). However, operating at higher stripper temperatures and pressures promotes thermal solvent degradation which is associated with carbamate polymerization (Davis and Rochelle, 2009; Polderman et al., 1955; Yazvikova, 1975). The thermal degradation products formed from carbamate polymerization include 2-oxazolidone,
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dihydroxyethylurea, 1-(2-hydroxyethyl)-2-imidazolidone (HEIA) and N-(2- hydroxyethyl)-ethylenediamine (HEEDA) (Davis and Rochelle, 2009). The formation of these four species is associated with the stripper temperature, CO2 loading and
solvent concentration (Davis and Rochelle, 2009). In this work, the reboiler pressure remained constant for all the experiments at ~1.5 bara whereas the pressurised hot water inlet temperature was kept either constant (126Β°C) or varied (124-127Β°C). As the solvent concentration used was 40 wt% MEA, this means that the boiling point is higher compared to using a 30 wt% MEA solvent, as well as the reboiler temperature which will augment the rate of thermal degradation. Davis and Rochelle's (2009) also indicated this and demonstrated that ~67% of thermal degradation arises in the reboiler sump and ~33% develops in the stripper packing. These authors also show that the loss of MEA solvent increases by up to 7 times with a 20Β°C rise in stripper temperature from 108-128Β°C (Davis and Rochelle, 2009). Furthermore, the higher CO2 concentrations considered here will lead to
increased CO2 loadings. This has also been shown to increase the thermal
degradation rate (Davis and Rochelle, 2009). Hence, due to the elevated pressurised hot water temperatures considered in this work, thermal degradation can also be attributed to the lower solvent concentrations reported in Appendix A.4. In optimised S-EGR configerations, thermal degdration in the downstream capture plant is not anticpated to be of major concern. The results presented here idicates that operating the stripper at lower temperature reduces the rate of thermal degdradation. Hence, for optimised S-EGR systems, the reboiler duty will be lower ~3-4 MJ/kg and the stripper temperature will be operating at the optimal temperature for amine based scrubbing ~120Β°C.