• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.22 no.8
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• pp.545-552
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• 2010

Research and development efforts to reduce $CO_2$ emission are in progress to cope with global warming. $CO_2$ emission from fossil fuel fired power plants is a major greenhouse gas source and the post-combustion $CO_2$ capture is considered as a short or medium term option to reduce $CO_2$ emissions. In this study, the application of the post-combustion $CO_2$ capture system, which is based on chemical absorption and stripping processes, to typical fossil fuel fired power plants was investigated. A coal fired plant and a natural gas fired combined cycle plant were selected. Performance of the MEA-based $CO_2$ capture system combined with power plants was analyzed and overall plant performance including the energy consumption of the $CO_2$ capture process was investigated.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.33-38
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• 2018

This study applied upgrades to the processes of a 10 MW wet amine $CO_2$ capture pilot plant and conducted performance evaluation. The 10 MW $CO_2$ Capture Pilot Plant is a facility that applies 1/50 of the combustion flue gas produced from a 500 MW coal-fired power plant, and is capable of capturing up to 200 tons of $CO_2$. This study aimed to quantitatively measure efficiency improvements of post-combustion $CO_2$ capture facilities resulting from process upgrades to propose reliable data for the first time in Korea. The key components of the process upgrades involve absorber intercooling, lean/rich amine exchanger efficiency improvements, reboiler steam TVR (Thermal Vapor Recompression), and lean amine MVR (Mechanical Vapor Recompression). The components were sequentially applied to test the energy reduction effect of each component. In addition, the performance evaluation was conducted with the absorber $CO_2$ removal efficiency maintained at the performance evaluation standard value proposed by the IEA-GHG ($CO_2$ removal rate: 90%). The absorbent used in the study was the highly efficient KoSol-5 that was developed by KEPCO (Korea Electric Power Corporation). From the performance evaluation results, it was found that the steam consumption (regeneration energy) for the regeneration of the absorbent decreased by $0.38GJ/tonCO_2$ after applying the process upgrades: from $2.93GJ/ton\;CO_2$ to $2.55GJ/tonCO_2$. This study confirmed the excellent performance of the post-combustion wet $CO_2$ capture process developed by KEPCO Research Institute (KEPRI) within KEPCO, and the process upgrades validated in this study are expected to substantially reduce $CO_2$ capture costs when applied in demonstration $CO_2$ capture plants.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2016

In order to reduce the anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases, CCS technology has emerged as the most promising and practical solution. Among CCS technology, post-combustion $CO_2$ capture is known as the most mature and effective process to remove $CO_2$ from power plant, but its energy consumption for chemical solvent regeneration still remains as an obstacle for commercialization. In this study, a process alternative integrating $CO_2$ capture with compression process is proposed which not only reduces the amount of thermal energy required for solvent regeneration but also produces $CO_2$ at an elevated pressure.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.58 no.1
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• pp.150-162
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• 2020

The proprietary post-combustion CO₂ solvent (KoSol) developed by the Korea Electric Power Research Institute (KEPRI) was applied at the Shanghai Shidongkou CO₂ Capture Pilot Plant (China Huaneng CERI, capacity: 120,000 ton CO₂/yr) of the China Huaneng Group (CHNG) for performance evaluation. The key results of the pilot test and data on the South Korean/Chinese electric power market were used to calculate the predicted cost of CO₂ avoided upon deployment of CO₂ capture technology in commercial-scale coal-fired power plants. Sensitivity analysis was performed for the key factors. It is estimated that, in the case of South Korea, the calculated cost of CO₂ avoided for an 960 MW ultra-supercritical (USC) coal-fired power plant is approximately 35~44 USD/tCO₂ (excluding CO₂ transportation and storage costs). Conversely, applying the same technology to a 1,000 MW USC coal-fired power plant in Shanghai, China, results in a slightly lower cost (32~42 USD/tCO₂). This study confirms the importance of international cooperation that takes into consideration the geographical locations and the performance of CO₂ capture technology for the involved countries in the process of advancing the economic efficiency of large-scale CCS technology aimed to reduce greenhouse gases

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.57 no.2
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• pp.253-258
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• 2019

Several materials are used to design the sorbents applied in a fast-fluidized bed process for post-combustion $CO_2$ capture. In this study, $K_2CO_3$-based dry sorbent (KMC) was prepared by using Micro-cell C (MCC), one of the materials used to design the sorbent, and then its $CO_2$ sorption and regeneration properties were evaluated. KMC sorbent showed a low $CO_2$ capture capacity of 21.6 mg $CO_2/g$ sorbent, which is about 22% of the theoretical value (95.4 mg $CO_2/g$ sorbent) even at 1 cycle, and showed a low $CO_2$ capture capacity of 13.7 mg $CO_2/g$ sorbent at 5 cycles. It was confirmed that the KMC sorbent was deactivated due to the formation of a $K_2Ca$ $(CO_3)_2$ phase, resulting from the reaction of the $K_2CO_3$ with the Ca component contained in the MCC. In order to solve the deactivation of sorbent, and KM8 sorbent was prepared by adding the process of calcining the MCC at $850^{\circ}C$. The KM8 sorbent showed a high $CO_2$ capture capacity of 95.2 mg $CO_2/g$ sorbent and excellent regeneration property. Thus, it was confirmed that the deactivation of the sorbent could be solved by adding the calcining step to remove the side reaction causing material.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.13-18
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• 2019

The high energy penalty in amine-based post-combustion CO₂ capture process is hampering its industrial scale application. An advanced process is designed by intensive heat integration within the conventional process to reduce the stripper duty. The study presents the technical feasibility for stripper duty reduction by intensive heat integration in CO₂ capture process. A rigorous rate-based model has been used in Aspen Plus® to simulate conventional and advanced process for a 300 MW coal-based power plant. Several design and operational parameters like split ratio, stripper inter-heater location and flowrate were studied to find the optimum values. The results show that advanced configuration with heat integration can reduces the stripper heat by 14%.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2016

Global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions is considered as a major problem worldwide, and many countries are making great efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Many technologies in post-combustion, pre-combustion and oxy-fuel combustion $CO_2$ capture have been developed. Among them, a hybrid pre-combustion $CO_2$ capture system of a water gas shift (WGS) reactor and a membrane gas separation unit was investigated. The 2 stage WGS reactor integrated high temperature shift (HTS) with a low temperature shift (LTS) was used to obtain a higher CO conversion rate. A Pd/Cu dense metal membrane was used to separate $H_2$ from $CO_2$ selectively. The performance of the hybrid system in terms of CO conversion and $H_2$ separation was evaluated using a 65% CO, 30 % $H_2$ and 5% $CO_2$ gas mixture for applications to pre-combustion $CO_2$ capture. The experiments were carried out over the range of WGS temperatures ($200-400^{\circ}C$), WGS pressures (0-20bar), Steam/Carbon (S/C) ratios (2.5-5) in a feed gas flow rate of 1 L/min. A very high CO conversion rate of 99.5% was achieved with the HTS-LTS 2 stage water gas shift reactor, and 83% $CO_2$ was concentrated in the retentate using the Pd/Cu membrane.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.83-94
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• 2016

Performance of absorbent for post-combustion $CO_2$ capture was measured and discussed. Fully saturated fresh absorbent (P2-15F) and absorbents sampled from absorption and regeneration reactor of continuous $CO_2$ capture process, P2-15A, P2-15R, respectively, were used as representative absorbents. Small scale fluidized bed reactor (0.05 m I.D., 0.8 m high) which can measure exhaust gas concentration and weight change simultaneously was used to analyze regeneration characteristics for those absorbents. Exhausted moles of $CO_2$ and $H_2O$ were measured with increasing temperature. $H_2O/CO$ ratio and working capacity were determined and discussed to confirm reason of reactivity decay after continuous operation. Moreover, possibility of side reaction was checked based on the $H_2O/CO_2$ mole ratio. Finally, suitable regeneration temperature range was confirmed based on the trend of working capacity with temperature.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.103-108
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• 2016

Carbon Capture and Storage technologies are recognized as key solution to meet greenhouse gas emission standards to avoid climate change. Although MEA (monoethanolamine) is an effective amine solvent in $CO_2$ capture process, the application is limited by high energy consumption, i.e., reduction of 10% of efficiency of coal-fired power plants. Therefore the development of new solvent and improvement of $CO_2$ capture process are positively necessary. In this study, improvement of $CO_2$ capture process was investigated and applied to Test Bed for reducing energy consumption. Previously reported technologies were examined and prospective methods were determined by simulation. Among the prospective methods, four applicable methods were selected for applying to 0.1 MW Test Bed, such as change of packing material in absorption column, installing the Intercooling System to absorption column, installing Rich Amine Heater and remodeling of Amines Heat Exchanger. After the improvement construction of 0.1 MW Test Bed, the effects of each suggested method were evaluated by experimental results.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.562-570
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• 2016

At the carbon dioxide capture process using the aqueous amine solution, degradation of absorbents is main factor to reducing the process performance. Also, degradation mechanism of absorbent is important for understanding the environmental risk, route of degradation products, health risk etc. In this study, the degradation products of MEA were studied to clarify mechanism in thermal degradation process. The degradation products were analyzed using a $^1H$ NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) and $^{13}C$ NMR. The analysis methods used in this study provide guidelines that could be used to develop a degradation inhibitor of absorbent and a corrosion inhibitor.