Techno-Economic Comparison of Carbon Capture Technologies with Exhaust Gas Recirculation in NGCC Power Plants
Year: 2026
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Post-combustion amine absorption is the most mature CO2 capture technology, while membrane separation is a promising alternative due to its modularity and operational simplicity. Process intensification through exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) has also gained attention for increasing flue gas CO2 concentration and reducing capture energy demand. However, comprehensive techno-economic comparisons of absorption, membrane, and hybrid systems under EGR-integrated NGCC conditions remain limited. This study presents a techno-economic assessment of multiple CO2 capture configurations for a 450 MW NGCC power plant. Process simulations were performed using Aspen Plus and Aspen Custom Modeler to evaluate absorption, membrane, and hybrid systems integrated with conventional and selective EGR. The analysis considers full steam cycle integration and compares energy consumption, net plant efficiency, levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), and CO2 avoidance cost. The results show that EGR significantly improves carbon capture performance. Among all cases, selective EGR combined with amine absorption delivers the best performance, reducing the energy penalty by more than 30% compared with standalone absorption and by over 70% relative to membrane separation. This configuration achieves an LCOE of approximately 72 USD/MWh and a CO2 avoidance cost of about 39 USD/tCO2, outperforming the selective EGR–membrane system (77 USD/MWh and 51 USD/tCO2). These findings demonstrate that integrating selective EGR with amine absorption is a highly promising strategy for improving the technical and economic feasibility of CCSU in NGCC power plants.
Language: English
Subfield: Filtration and Separation
Field: Chemical Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W7202283419