Economical and Socio-Environmental Analysis of CO₂ Compression for CCUS Projects

¹ Escola de Química, UFRJ, Av. Athos da Silveira Ramos, 149, Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil
² Dep. de Eng. Química e de Petróleo, UFF, R. Passo da Pátria, 156, Niterói-RJ, Brazil

^* Corresponding author: gabriel.de.figueiredo@eq.ufrj.br

Abstract

Considering that Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) plants will become more important due to the need for mitigation of CO₂ emissions, it is important to study this kind of plant regarding not only technical but also economic and socio-environmental aspects. In this work, a CO₂ compression unit was assessed regarding (i) technical; (ii) economic; and (iii) socio-environmental aspects, and the results were compared for cases with 1 to 6 stages of compression. The compression strategy using only one stage proved to be the most economically feasible. With regard to socio-environmental indicators, the strategy with 6 stages proved to be the most efficient with lower energy and water consumption, smaller carbon footprint and lower tax collection. When economic, environmental and social aspects are taken into account, the best strategy to be chosen is the CO₂ compression with 2 stages.