Creative Commons

This dissertation was written as a part of the MSc in Energy Systems at the International Hellenic University. Its purpose is to evaluate via Life Cycle Analysis the environmental footprint of ‘carbonate looping’ post-combustion CO2 capture technology in electricity production compared to the more mature post-combustion CO2 capture technology of ‘amine scrubbing’. Carbonate looping is an ex-situ, post-combustion CO2 capture technology in which carbon dioxide from the flue gases is captured by a CaO-based sorbent. CaO carbonation is a highly exothermic process and with proper heat integration of the process, this heat can be employed for the endothermic regeneration process rendering the whole technique nearly autothermal in contrast to the amine scrubbing technology where a significant amount of energy is required to regenerate the saturated amine solution. The environmental performance of a Greek lignite-fired power plant retrofitted with the two post-combustion CO2 capture technologies and the reference scenario with no capture, are examined via life cycle analysis (LCA). The investigated technology of ‘carbonate looping’ is compared with the case of electricity production at a power plant without capture technology and with the case of electricity production with amine scrubbing. The software program of SimaPro was chosen in order to evaluate the footprint of the entire scenarios as well as the extent of the contribution of each life cycle step to the different environmental impact categories and especially the impact category of global warming and reach some conclusions in terms of possible improvements. At this point, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor and my professor at International Hellenic University, Dr. Eleni Heracleous, for her invaluable guidance, her constant support and most of all, for her patience throughout my dissertation writing, giving me her precious advices, as well as, I would like to express my thanks to Dr. Georgios Martinopoulos for helping me with the software program. I would also like to thank my husband Giorgo, my son Filippo and the other members of my family, for giving me their support and being patience, throughout the dissertation time period and made possible for me to complete my studies