The maximum capture efficiency of CO2 using a carbonation/calcination cycle of CaO/CaCO3

The use of natural calcium carbonates as regenerable CO₂ sorbents in industrial processes is limited by the rapid decay of the carbonation conversion with the number of cycles carbonation/calcination. However, new processes are emerging to capture CO₂ using these cycles, that can take advantage of the intrinsic benefits of high temperature separations in energy systems. This work presents an analysis of a general carbonation/calcination cycle to capture CO₂, incorporating a fresh feed of sorbent to compensate for the decay in activity during sorbent re-cycling. A general design equation for the maximum CO₂ capture efficiency is obtained by incorporating to the cycle mass balances a simple but realistic equation to estimate the decay in sorbent activity with the number of cycles.