Techno-Economic Evaluation on Solar-Assisted Post-Combustion CO₂ Capture in Hollow Fiber Membrane Contactors

In this study, a novel system which integrates solar thermal energy with membrane gas absorption technology is proposed to capture CO2 from a 580 MWe pulverized coal power plant. Technical feasibility and economic evaluation are carried out on the proposed system in three cities with different solar resources in China. Research results show that the output capacity and net efficiency of the SOL-HFMC power plant are significantly higher than those of the reference power plant regardless of whether a TES system is applied or not. In addition, the CEI of the SOL-HFMC power plant with the TES system is 4.36 kg CO2/MWh, 4.45 kg CO2/MWh and 4.66 kg CO2/MWh lower than that of the reference power plant. The prices of the membrane, vacuum tube collector and phase change material should be reduced to achieve lower LCOE and COR values. Specifically for the SOL-HFMC power plant with the TES system, the corresponding vacuum tube collector price shall be lower than 25.70 $/m2 for Jinan, 95.20 $/m2 for Xining, and 128.70 $/m2 for Lhasa, respectively. To be more competitive than a solar-assisted ammonia-based post-combustion CO2 capture power plant, the membrane price in Jinan, Xining and Lhasa shall be reduced to 0.012 $/m, 0.015 $/m and 0.016 $/m for the sake of LCOE, and 0.03 $/m, 0.033 $/m and 0.034 $/m for the sake of COR, respectively.