Current commercial carbon capture technologies are limited to amine-based absorption. However, this technology is energy-intensive and costly, and amines degrade over time, forming harmful byproducts that pose disposal challenges. Among emerging advancements, the calcium (CaL) cycle, based on a multi-cycle carbonation-calcination process using CaO, suggests lower costs and greater sustainability. TR is developing the vacuum-assisted calcium (V-CaL) cycle.
The vacuum-assisted calcium cycle is an innovative technology for capturing CO2 from a wide range of industrial emissions. V-CaL is based on a fixed-bed reactor filled with calcium oxide, which undergoes carbonation-calcination cycles to capture carbon dioxide from incoming flue gases and release it with a purity of nearly 100%.
The innovation compared to the traditional calcium cycle lies in the fact that calcination is performed under near-vacuum conditions to release the CO₂, resulting in significant energy savings. In fact, for flue gas temperatures above 700 °C, V-CaL requires no external heat at any stage of the cycle. Furthermore, no flue gas desulfurization or CO₂ purification units are required. Therefore, V-CaL technology offers advantages particularly suited to energy-intensive and hard-to-control industries, and can be adapted to treat a wide range of flue gas volumes.
In conclusion, the vacuum-assisted calcium looping (V-CaL) process is emerging as a promising technology for carbon capture, as it offers high energy efficiency and low costs for producing nearly pure CO₂, while eliminating the need for a preliminary desulfurization step or a subsequent purification unit.
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