CO2 Capture and Removal System for a Gas-Steam Combined Cycle

This paper presents the study of a natural gas fired power cycle which includes a carbon dioxide capture plant based on an absorption and scrubbing system. The interest in this integration is due to the widespread use of combined cycles in the power generation sector because of their high energy conversion efficiency. Energy consumption of the capture and removal system and its influence on the energetic performance of the power plant have been calculated. Mass and heat balance calculations are carried out by using the software tools GateCycle for the combined cycle and Aspen+ Software for the absorption process. Results of plant performance calculations, including compression of the captured carbon dioxide, are presented. The results, compared to the combined cycle power plant with no carbon dioxide capture, have also been compared to the more commonly known carbon dioxide capture process based on atmospheric absorption with MEA.