Production of high-purity carbon dioxide and sodium bicarbonate by lime cellar gas cleaning and chemical recycling: Process simulation and techno-economic analysis

The cement industry is responsible for 8% of total global CO₂ emissions, which mainly originate from limestone calcination and fuel combustion. In view of the application potential of using CO₂ to produce chemicals, this paper developed a novel process based on the Aspen Plus process simulation for the co-production of 99.99% CO₂ by means of Methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) absorption/desorption and NaHCO₃ by carbonization of CO₂, NH₃ and Na₂SO₄. The effects of absorption temperature, NH₃ and Na₂SO₄ feeding amount, crystallizer temperature and pressure on CO₂ capture rate and utilization rate were explored. The results showed that the best CO₂ capture rate was achieved when the cellar gas inlet temperature of the absorber tower was 37 °C; Saturated Na₂SO₄ solution was favorable for CO₂ absorption, and the CO₂ utilization rate increased with the increase of Na₂SO₄ dosage; NaHCO₃ yield decreased with the increase of crystallizing temperature, and the best NaHCO₃ yield was achieved when the crystallizer temperature was 35.5 °C; Crystallizing pressure had little impact on the reaction. Economic analysis showed that the project will start to be profitable in 6.48 years with a Net Return Rate (NRR) value of 13.51%. It indicates that the project has economic benefits and provides a new way to reduce CO₂ emissions from lime cellar gas.