Performance and costs of CCS in the pulp and paper industry: Part 1: Performance of amine-based post-combustion CO₂ capture

The performance of an amine-based post-combustion CO₂ capture and storage (CCS) process in an existing Kraft pulp mill and an existing pulp and board mill was assessed. The pulp and paper industry is an energy-intensive industry, with significant amounts of CO₂ emitted onsite. The majority of this CO₂ originates from the combustion of biomass, which renders it carbon neutral if the biomass used by the industry is grown and harvested in a sustainable manner. If the CO₂ emissions from the pulp and paper industry were to be captured and permanently stored, then this could make the industry a potential carbon sink. In this evaluation, different configurations of capturing CO₂ from the flue gases of the recovery boiler, the multi-fuel boiler and the lime kiln were assessed. For a stand-alone Kraft pulp mill, the excess steam available is sufficient to cover the demand from the CO₂ capture plant. For an integrated pulp and board mill, there is less excess steam available for the CO₂ capture plant and an auxiliary boiler may be required. The retrofit of a post-combustion CO₂ capture plant into an existing pulp mill increases the steam demand by 1-8 GJ/air dried tonne (adt) pulp, depending on the volume of the flue gas treated. This translates to a reduction in the amount of electricity exported to the grid by 0.1-1.0 MWh/adt pulp for a stand-alone Kraft pulp mill, and by 0.1-0.5 MWh/adt pulp for an integrated pulp and board mill. The total potential for negative CO₂ emissions amounts to just under 2.0 Mt CO₂/a both for the market pulp mill and for the integrated pulp and board mill.