CO2 Separation Tech
Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) announced on July 28 that it has established the carbon dioxide (CO2) separator production facilities, which can efficiently separate CO2 from flue gas emitted by coal-fired thermal power plants at low cost, for the first time in the world and start its commercial production.
According to the company, the CO2 separator production facilities have been jointly set up by KEPCO and Arstroma, a Korean small company which has a basic technology for separator, to commercialize low cost and high efficiency separator technology in order to respond to climate change.
The next-generation CO2 separator technology, which is co-developed by the two companies, is considered an innovative technology which can reduce CO2 capture costs and site areas by up to half compared to existing CO2 capture technology. Since it has simple structures, it can easily increase its sizes. Moreover, it is an eco-friendly technology which doesn’t use any chemical or toxic substances. The technology can also expand to other business sectors, including gas refining.
An official from KEPCO said, “According to the data from the U.S. Department of Energy, the new CO2 separator technology can improve CO2 capture efficiency of plants by 2 percent and cut generation and capture costs by 10 percent to 20 percent compared to the existing technology.”
KEPCO plans to improve CO2 separator performance, produce high-capacity modules, complete the optimization of separator processes and build a 1MW CO2 separator plant at the Dangjin Thermal Power Plant Unit 5 by 2017.