Simulation of the Sour-Compression Unit (SCU) process for CO2 purification applied to flue gases coming from oxy-combustion cement industries.

Highlights • A CO 2 de-SOx and de-NOx process was simulated for full oxy-fuel cement plants. • A comprehensive chemical mechanism has been elucidated and implemented in Aspen. • Results of a parametric study were presented for a single-column configuration. • Optimizations depending on purity targets were achieved by economic evaluations. Abstract The purpose of the present work was to investigate, for a gas issued from a full oxy-fuel combustion in the cement industry, a CO 2 de-SOx and de-NOx process, called "Sour-Compression Unit" (SCU), thanks to simulations with Aspen PlusTM. An important stage necessary for the SCU modeling has been the construction of an accurate chemical mechanism. Two-column and single-column configurations have been evaluated and compared. A parametric study and a Design Of Experiments have been conducted on a single-column process to study the influence of the operating parameters on the SOx and NOx abatement ratios. As a demonstration of the effectiveness of the model, three SOx and NOx purity specifications (depending on the further applications of the CO 2) were applied to the purified gas. The feature of the investigated model lies on optimizing the way to reach the purity target in order to decrease installation costs (CAPEX) and energy requirements (OPEX). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]