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Research Integrated Research on Energy, Environment and Society | IREES Research

Techno-economic prospects and life cycle assessment of biobased industrial processes with CCS (CO2 and storage) | Fan Yang

Fan Yang
Fan Yang

Field | Discipline

Expertise

Summary

According to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, stabilizing the global temperature rise at 2°C implies a massive reduction of green house gas (GHG) emissions. The abundant use of fossil fuels has become a cause of concern due to their adverse effects on the environment, particularly related to the emission of CO2, a major anthropogenic GHG. Industrial activities emissions were 14.5Gt CO2, account for 30% of the total global anthropogenic emissions of CO2. To keep GHG concentrations at low levels, the energy supply system need to be transformed fundamentally like substituting the unabated fossil fuel conversion technologies by low-GHG alternatives.

Various CCS technology options are over time becoming more competitive and expectedly deployed in the energy system and in industry. Scaled-up modern bioenergy deployment with CCS is expected to have a significant contribution in CO2 mitigation from industrial sectors, not only because of their total CO2 emissions but also because there are many industrial processes that generate gas streams rich in CO2, or in some cases pure CO2, which may enable CCS technology at low energy penalty and economic costs. Combined use of (sustainable) biomass with CCS can result in negative CO2 emissions, which is deemed necessary this century to meet key climate targets. The opportunities of these solutions, realistic potential and/or the main threats related to Bio-CCS are to be better understood in the light of sustainability and economic potential.

Different industries may become large users of biomass in combination with CCS, including chemical industry (producing biobased chemicals and a range of transport fuels), steel, cement, as well as agrofood industries, paper & pulp, etc. The combinations of improved or new industrial processes, using biomass as fuel or feedstock and CCS are plentiful and need to be better understood in terms of techno-economic, environmental performance as well as how they can be optimized over time. Optimal lay out will also depend on availability and supplies of biomass feedstocks and the possibilities for CO2 storage and required infrastructure. The latter are all location specific and optimal design in terms of techno-economic performance needs to take those spatial aspects into account.

According to this, the project will be divided in the following five phases:

  • A systematic and comprehensive overview of the deployment and potential technologies for Bio-CCS (with a focus on industrial applications).
  • Optimization performance: Techno-economic process analysis for selected industrial biobased CO2 capture options.
  • The techno-economic analysis and optimization of selected value chains for industrial Biobased -CCS options.
  • Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of Biobased industrial processes with CCS.
  • Case study of sustainable BioCCS application and potentials in China.

For this project, the techno-economic prospects of CO2 capture from industrial processes will be essential part to determine the most cost-effective configuration and will be followed by optimization modeling methods for the technical and economic aspects. Also the comprehensive Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) in specific local and regional conditions is crucial for this research to examine the overall impacts of the Biobased industrial sector.

Source IPCC
Source IPCC


Supervision by

  • Promotor Prof. dr. A.P.C. (André) Faaij | Integrated Research on Energy, Environment and Society - IREES | ESRIG, University of Groningen.
  • Co-promotor J.C. (Hans) Meerman | Integrated Research on Energy, Environment and Society - IREES | ESRIG, University of Groningen.


More information and contact details
can be found on the personal profile of Fan Yang

Last modified:27 February 2024 12.23 p.m.