Electrochemically mediated separation for carbon capture
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Stern-2011-Electrochemically me.pdf
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Author(s)
Simeon, Fritz
Hammer, Thomas
Landes, Harald
Herzog, Howard J.
Stern, Michael C.
Hatton, Trevor Alan
Date Issued
April 2011
Journal
Energy Procedia
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
Stern, Michael C., Fritz Simeon, Thomas Hammer, Harald Landes, Howard J. Herzog, and T. Alan Hatton. “Electrochemically Mediated Separation for Carbon Capture.” Energy Procedia 4 (2011): 860–867.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Carbon capture technology has been proposed as an effective approach for the mitigation of anthropogenic CO[subscript 2] emissions. Thermal-swing separation technologies based on wet chemical scrubbing show potential for facilitating CO[subscript 2] capture at industrial-scale carbon emitters; however, the total operational and capital costs resulting from the high energy consumption are prohibitive for their implementation. Electrochemically mediated processes are proposed to be the next generation of CO[subscript 2] separation technology that can enable carbon capture to be a more viable option for carbon mitigation in the near future. This technology utilizes electrochemically active sorbents that undergo significant changes in their molecular affinity for CO[subscript 2] molecules as they progress through an electrochemical cycle. This nearly isothermal separation process consumes electrical energy to facilitate effective CO[subscript 2] capture and regeneration processes under more benign conditions of sorption and desorption than in traditional continuous wet-scrubber operations. This electrically driven separation process has the potential to significantly reduce the difficulty of retrofitting CO[subscript 2] capture units to existing fossil fuel-fired power generators. The ease of installing an electrically driven separation system would also allow its application to other industrial carbon emitters. The design of such a system, however, requires careful consideration since it involves both heterogeneous electrochemical activation/deactivation of sorbents and homogeneous complexation of the activated sorbents with CO[subscript 2] molecules. Optimization of the energy efficiency requires minimizing the irreversibility associated with these processes. In this study, we use a general exergy analysis to evaluate the minimum thermodynamic work based on the system design and the electrochemical parameters of quinodal redox-active molecules. Using this thermodynamic framework, our results suggest that the proposed technology could capture CO[subscript 2] from a dilute post-combustion flue gas and regenerate CO[subscript 2] at 1 bar with high efficiency, if a two-stage design is effectively implemented.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
MIT Energy Initiative
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2011.01.130
