Hitachi's Carbon Dioxide Scrubbing Technology with H3-1 Absorbent for Coal-Fired Power Plants

Abstract Babcock-Hitachi K.K. (BHK) has been developing a new amine-based scrubbing technology for capturing C02 in the flue gas. By screening more than thirty kinds of amines, proprietary solvent H3 was developed in early 1990's that has high C02 absorption capacity and requires low regeneration energy. The H3 solvent was further improved to an advanced formulation called H3-1 by using additives to achieve 70% lower degradation rate compared with the H3 solvent. Tests of H3-1 to date by both BHK and others show that the reboiler heat duty for H3-1 was about 30% lower than that of 30% MEA solution. The H3-1 solvent was recently tested for over 1300 hours at a slipstream test facility sponsored by the United States Department of Energy. In partnership with SaskPower, Hitachi will demonstrate the H3-1 solvent at a 20MWth facility which will be installed at SaskPower's Shand Power Station in Canada. The facility will incorporate core process equipment designed and fabricated by Hitachi.