Recovery of CO2 with MEA and K2CO3 absorption in the IGCC system

Recovery of CO₂ with monoethanolamine (MEA) and hot potassium carbonate (K₂CO₃) absorption processes in an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant was studied for the purpose of development of greenhouse gas control technology. Based on energy and exergy analysis of the two systems, improvement options were provided to further reduce energy penalty for the CO₂ separation in the IGCC system. In the improvement options, the energy consumption for CO₂ separation is reduced by about 32%. As a result, the thermal efficiency of IGCC system is increased by 2.15 percentage‐point for the IGCC system with MEA absorption, and by 1.56 percentage‐point for the IGCC system with K₂CO₃ absorption. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.