This paper presents a review of the research on CO(2) capture by lime-based looping cycles undertaken at CanmetENERGY's (Ottawa, Canada) research laboratories. This is a new and very promising technology that may help in mitigation of global warming and climate change caused primarily by the use of fossil fuels. The intensity of the anticipated changes urgently requires solutions such as more cost-effective technologies for CO(2) capture. This new technology is based on the use of lime-based sorbents in a dual fluidized bed combustion (FBC) reactor which contains a carbonator-a unit for CO(2) capture, and a calciner-a unit for CaO regeneration. However, even though natural materials are cheap and abundant and very good candidates as solid CO(2) carriers, their performance in a practical system still shows significant limitations. These limitations include rapid loss of activity during the capture cycles, which is a result of sintering, attrition, and consequent elutriation from FBC reactors. Therefore, research on sorbent performance is critical and this paper reviews some of the promising ways to overcome these shortcomings. It is shown that reactivation by steam/water, thermal pre-treatment, and doping simultaneously with sorbent reforming and pelletization are promising potential solutions to reduce the loss of activity of these sorbents over multiple cycles of use.
Keywords: CO2 capture; Ca looping cycles; hydration; pelletization; thermal pre-treatment.