Partial CO2 capture in process industry – a review of aspects to consider for a cost-effective and timely CCS implementation

Paper in proceeding, 2022

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) activities need to be ramped up significantly to address the climate crises. This paper reviews relevant techno-economic and policy-related aspects for a cost-effective, near-term implementation of CCS via partial CO2 capture in the process industry which have been explored in a doctoral thesis from a site-level perspective. These aspects include: 1) the energy- and cost-effective design of solvent-based processes for partial capture, entailing cost savings of up to 10% for CO2-rich gases (>17 vol.%wet); 2) the efficient use of available heat on-site to power partial which can confer cost savings along the entire CCS chain of up to ~25%; 3) the incorporation of site realities, such as temporal variations in heat availability, into techno-economic assessments; 4) the adaption of policies that address the allocation of carbon emissions reductions to low-carbon products, so that investments in mitigation technologies are incentivized with respect to the ambition level; and 5), the recognition of the rather narrow window of opportunity for partial capture with regard to the climate targets of the Paris Agreement and to the lifetime of the existing infrastructure, alternative production and (co-)mitigation technologies, as well as the regional energy and CO2 transport and storage systems.