LCA overview on different post-combustion carbon capture applications

The aim of this paper is to compare, from a technical environmental point of view, different postcombustion capture technologies applied to a supercritical pulverized coal power plant. All the selected technologies are based on chemical absorption using different solvents. In particular, two of them are amine-based technologies, while the other two are inorganic solvents using aqueous ammonia and aqueous potassium carbonate. This paper presents the results of a comparative LCA among the four different technologies and the reference case without CO2 capture. The benefits of the inorganic solvents compared with amines are principally due to avoidance of emissions from amine degradation along with a cleaner footprint during the production and transport process of the solvent maintaining almost the same global warming potential and energetic performances.