The improved CO2 capture system with heat recovery based on absorption heat transformer and flash evaporator

Absorption heat transformer (AHT) and flash evaporator (FE) are used to reduce the heat consumption of CO2 capture processes and an AHT–FE-aided capture system is proposed. Analyses are carried out to verify the effectiveness in reducing heat consumption. Compared with the base CO2 capture system of 3000 t/d CO2 capture capacity from a 660 MW coal-fired power unit, the AHT–FE-aided capture system reduces the heat consumption from 3.873 GJ/tCO2 to 3.772 GJ/tCO2, and the corresponding energy saving is 2.62%. The economic analysis shows that the annual profit would be 2.94 million RMB Yuan. The payback period of the AHT–FE-aided capture system is approximately 2.4 years. Therefore, the AHT–FE-aided capture system is both economically and technically feasible for improving the CO2 capture energy performance.