Sustainability assessment in the CO2 capture process: Multi-objective optimization

Electricity production from the burning of fossil fuels, is one of the main sources of Carbon Dioxide (CO ₂) emissions. Therefore, it is necessary to find alternatives to mitigate CO ₂ emissions. Having as alternative the implementation of CO ₂ Capture and Storage plants (CCS). Highlighting post-combustion technologies with chemical absorption and mono-ethanolamine (MEA) as solvent. Despite its high efficiency to capture CO ₂, MEA is considered toxic, so its implementation entails an environmental impact. Moreover, no studies report a complete design considering environmental impact and the process economies as a sustainable indicator. This work presents the optimization of the design of a CO ₂ capture plant coupled to a power plant considering a stochastic algorithm having as objective function the minimization of the Ecoindicator 99, Condition Number (γ ^*) and maximize the return on investment (ROI). To evaluate the environmental implications, control properties and economic of the process, respectively. The analysis considered the most used fuels in the power plant: coal, natural gas, and associated gas. Including the analysis of biogas as a green fuel to produce energy. All the cases were standardized to recover 99% of the CO ₂ produced. The results indicate that the design with the best overall performance is when natural gas is burned. Having a lower environmental impact with 22549.43 kEcopoints and a ROI of 73.24%.