Converting Combustion By-Products to Useful Chemicals and Fuels

In the pursuit of sustainable sources of energy that do less harm to the environment, numerous technologies have been developed to reduce carbon emissions in the atmosphere. The implementation of carbon capture and storage systems (CCS) has played a crucial role in reducing CO2 emissions, but depleting storage reserves and ever-increasing costs of sequestrating captured CO2 has prompted the idea of utilizing CO2 as soon as it is produced (i.e. carbon capture and utilization, or CCU) and storing any remaining amounts. This project analyzes the cost of implementing a delafossite CuFeO2 backed CCU system for the average US coal-burning power plant with respect to current amounts of CO2 captured. Beyond comparing annual maintenance costs of CCU and CCS systems, the project extends previous work done on direct CO2 conversion to liquid hydrocarbons by providing a protocol for determining how the presence of NO affects the products formed during pure CO2 hydrogenation. Overall, the goal is to gauge the applicability of CCU systems to power plants with a sub 10-year lifespan left, whilst observing the potential revenue that can be potentially generated from CCU implementation. Under current energy costs ($0.12 per kWh), a delafossite CuFeO2 supported CCU system would generate over $729 thousand in profit for an average sized supercritical pulverized coal power (SCPC) plants selling diesel fuel created from CO2 hydrogenation. This amount far exceeds the cost of storing captured CO2 and suggests that CCU systems can be profitable for SCPC power plants that intend to burn coal until 2025.