Our methodology combines techno-economic and lifecycle analyses to evaluate this process cost and environmental impacts against conventional Precipitated Calcium Carbonate production methods. We developed process models using OLI flowsheet simulation for a 1,000 t/yr CaCO3 production capacity. Department of Energy’s guidelines were used to quantify performance metrics, capital and operating expenses, and break-even sales prices based on an Internal Rate of Return. Concurrently, NETL’s CO2U lifecycle toolkit was used to quantify environmental impacts through cradle-to-gate analysis.
Results from performance metric analysis revealed significant variation in CO2 conversion potential depending on the reference industry. Using U.S. petroleum refineries (163.6 million tonnes CO2/year) as the reference source yields a conversion potential of 10.76%, indicating that the target output could utilize only a small portion of these emissions. Conversely, with U.S. chlor-alkali facilities (0.6 million tonnes CO2/year) as the reference, the conversion potential exceeds available emissions from these plants by a factor of nearly 29. These chlor-alkali facilities would contribute only about 3.4% of the CO2 needed for the target. Complete techno-economic findings and environmental impact assessments will be presented at the conference.