Integration of oxygen-enriched air combustion and CO2 capture for existing industrial boilers: development of a demonstrator – CO2 EnergiCapt

The fast industrial spreading of carbon capture and storage technologies (CCS) is a requirement in order to ensure a very effective lever effect on the emissions at a planetary scale; consequently, almost all of the current CCS projects at a pilot scale in many countries deal with the issues of considerable emission tonnages (thermal plants, steel industries and cement factories in particular) and use technologies of first generation (amine washing for post-combustion and oxycombustion captures). The issues of the emissions of the sectors producing between 25,000 and 100,000 CO2 tonnes per year, which represent a significant proportion of the whole tonnage, have never been studied on a pilot scale. The objectives of the project “CO2 EnergiCapt” is to fill this gap by developing the first pilot realization of carbon dioxide capture devoted to the production of urban heat distribution system like first application. A technical solution of first generation was adopted for capture (solvent absorption), with a minimization of the ratio CO2 eq emitted/kWh. The combination between the improvement of the combustion efficiencies on the existing installations using a oxygen-enriched air feeding, the thermal integration of the solvent regeneration process, the intensification of the capture step by membrane contactors, the conception and the validation in situ of an integrated pilot, constitutes the strong points and the originalities of the project which is based on a consortium bringing together an industrial leader in the boiler technologies for urban heat distribution system (LLT), a specialist in the membrane pilot conceptions (Polymem), two CNRS laboratories having expertises in the field of combustion (ICARE) and of the CCS process (LRGP), and a potential user of the large-scale technology (CPCU) which will receive the pilot study. The steps of storage and valorisation of CO2, which are specific research objects, are not included in the proposed program. However, they will be taken into account in the global strategy of this study. The main lines of development and research will deal with: the increase of energy efficiency of the installations and the optimization of the separation and the capture.