Towards CO2 Free Power Plants
26 November 2010
Two new technologies currently under development at the Technische Universität Darmstadt (Germany) could soon revolutionize Carbon Capture and Storage, allowing CO2 emission reduction in fossil fuel fired power plants with minimal energy consumption.

One of the reasons why CCS technology currently sees only a very limited application worldwide is that the efficiency in energy production is considerably reduced due to the extraction of CO2 from flue gases. The application of these two technologies is therefore expected to make it easier to realize coal-fired, oil-fired, and natural-gas-fired power plants which are able to generate power reliably and cost-effectively without polluting the environment.

The two methods currently being tested, “carbonate looping” and “chemical looping”, both employ natural substances and, when perfected, will require virtually no additional energy input and entail only slight increases in operating costs.

The “carbonate looping” utilizes naturally occurring limestone to capture the CO2 from the flue gas. In a second stage, the CO2 is released and stored. This method has the advantage of being suitable for the retrofitting of existing plants. The “chemical looping”, instead, is designed to be applied in new plants. Thanks to an innovative process it would cause almost no loss of energy efficiency, producing a stream of exhaust gases containing only CO2 and water vapor.

A pilot plant has been specially built on the university campus thanks to funding provided by the EU for this research project and will be utilized in the tests over the next two years.

For further information please visit this website."
 

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