Modeling Membrane

Journal of Membrane Science 421–422 (2012) 299–310

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Journal of Membrane Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/memsci

Membrane processes for carbon capture from coal-fired power plant flue gas:

A modeling and cost study

Kartik Ramasubramanian a, Hendrik Verweij b, W.S. Winston Ho a,b,n

a

b

The Ohio State University, William G. Lowrie Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, 2041 College Road, Columbus, OH 43210-1178, United States

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University, 2041 College Road, Columbus, OH 43210-1178, United States

article info

abstract

Article history:

Received 10 February 2012

Received in revised form

23 July 2012

Accepted 23 July 2012

Available online 1 August 2012

Favorable economics of electricity generation will be crucial to the successful implementation of postcombustion carbon capture. Hence, the US DOE has set a goal of o35% for the increase on the cost of

electricity (COE) due to CO2 capture. For meeting this goal, there is thus a growing need to perform a

cost analysis of emerging separation methods. This paper goes through a detailed modeling and costsensitivity study of a promising membrane-based process for carbon capture: the air-sweep process.

We have studied the impact of membrane performance, selectivity and permeance, on the COE increase

and the capture cost. The effects of operating parameters as well as the membrane price on the overall

cost were determined. Cost calculations show a COE increase of about 33% along with a capture cost of

o$24/t CO2 for the air-sweep process to achieve 90% CO2 recovery and 95% purity of the CO2 product.

This process operates at close to atmospheric feed pressure and requires a low membrane module price

of $27/m2, a CO2/N2 selectivity of about 140 combined with a high CO2 permeance of 3000 GPU.

Although the required membrane properties have not yet been...