Critical Material and Process Issues for CO2 Separation from Coal-Powered Plants

Concentrating CO2 from the dilute coal combustion or gasification gas stream to a level suitable for sequestration purposes represents a major cost factor to curtail CO2 emissions by capture and sequestration. This paper provides a short review of CO2 capture incentives, current separation processes, and research progress of various new technologies. Scientifically, CO2 can be separated from a gas mixture by all the methods reviewed in this work: distillation, absorption, adsorption, gas/solid reaction, membrane, electrochemical pump, hydrate formation, etc. The challenge lies in practical feasibility and ultimately the cost. Important material issues and their impacts to the process viability will be discussed.