Energy 144 (2018) 279e285

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Energy
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A novel process for CO2 capture from the flue gases to produce urea
and ammonia
Esmaeil Koohestanian, Jafar Sadeghi*, Davod Mohebbi-Kalhori, Farhad Shahraki,
Abdolreza Samimi
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The paper addresses the production of urea from carbon dioxide and nitrogen in the flue gas of the
Received 19 July 2017 power plants as an alternative to other proposed and suggested processes. The conventional separation
Received in revised form process of CO2 from flue gases has been so far directed to the methanol synthesis, while nitrogen, as the
6 December 2017
main part of the combustion product, is ignored. Carelessness about and lack of use of this byproduct is
Accepted 7 December 2017
led to the techno-economical failure of the process and cause environmental problems. In this research,
to the best of our knowledge, for the first time, the synthesis of urea and ammonia from the combustion
of oxy-fuel was investigated and the appropriate and green process was designed and proposed. To
Keywords:
CO2 capture
enhance economic justification, the process design was carried out using all three main components of
CO2 utilization the flue gas (CO2, N2, and H2O), along with efficiency increment of the combustion units. Considering of
Process design 2036 kg/hr oxy-fuel combustion products, direct removal of 1700 kg/hr CO2 from the carbon cycle and
Urea and ammonia synthesis production of 2856 kg/hr molten urea is estimated, which the latter product worth about 3.5
106 US$/
year.
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction flue gases [5,6]. In the method of pre-combustion, fossil fuel is

1.1. Background
Separation and purification of carbon dioxide have been com-
mon from the past for various reasons and usages such as food
industry, metal industry, welding and injection to the oil fields in
the process of enhanced oil recovery (EOR). However, in recent
years due to the environmental requirements and the effects of
greenhouse gases on the climate changes [1], the CO2 capture and
storage (CCS) process have been developed to reduce this pollutant
from its main sources such as power stations, petrochemical plants,
cement factories, oil refineries, etc. [2,3]. Since most of this
pollutant is produced by power stations [4], many studies have
been focused on its removal from the power plants flue gases.
Generally, three methods of pre-combustion, post-combustion and
oxy-fuel combustion have been proposed to separate CO2 from the
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: koohestanian@gmail.com, koohestanian@pgs.usb.ac.ir
(E. Koohestanian), sadeghi@eng.usb.ac.ir (J. Sadeghi), davoodmk@eng.usb.ac.ir
(D. Mohebbi-Kalhori), fshahraki@eng.usb.ac.ir (F. Shahraki), a.samimi@eng.usb.ac.
ir (A. Samimi).
converted to the syngas, consisting of CO and H2, and after con-
verting CO to CO2, the hydrogen is separated from the CO2. In the
oxy-fuel combustion, the high purity oxygen obtained from the air
separation unit (ASU) is used instead of air in the combustion
process. As a result, the concentration of CO2 in the flue gases is
increased, where it can be separated easily after dehydration by the
cooling and compression. Furthermore, in the oxy-fuel combustion,
due to the elimination of nitrogen, the flame temperature increases
and leads to the less fuel consumption. Though higher flame tem-
peratures, specially above 1700 K [7], cause more production of the
nitrogen oxides (NOx), as the major pollutant of concern [8], it will
not be the main issue in the oxy-fuel combustion because of the
low content of nitrogen in the flue gas stream. However, in the oxy-
fuel method, in order to control the flame temperature and
compensation of removed N2 from the fuel gas mixture, some of the
CO2 gas is recycled to the combustion chamber [4]. The post-
combustion of the CO2 separation causes minimum changes in
the original configuration of the existing power plant [9].
1.2. Carbon dioxide utilization
The separated carbon dioxide can be stored underground in an

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2017.12.034
0360-5442/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
280 E. Koohestanian et al. / Energy 144 (2018) 279e285
Nomenclature
Abbreviations
ASU Air separation unit
BFD Block flow diagram
CCS Carbon capture and storage
CPU Compression and purification unit
EOR Enhanced oil recovery
IEAGHG International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas
PFD Process flow diagram
NOx Nitrogen oxides
SOx Sulfur oxides
kij Temperature-dependent binary parameters
Equipment
HPC High pressure condenser
HPS High pressure stripper
UREA-R Urea reactor
empty gas reservoirs or used in the EOR process. However, storage
of CO2 in the empty reservoirs is not justified from economical
point of view. Furthermore, during natural events such as an
earthquake it can be released whereby the CO2 pollution level can
be suddenly raised [10]. Injection of CO2 into oil fields can decrease
the crude oil viscosity and the extraction costs, but does not lead to
its removal, while the cost of the sweetening process will be
increased, too.
In recent years, the separation of CO2, not as a waste but as a
valuable raw material, and its converting to valuable products, have
highly drawn the attention [11,12]. Carbon dioxide is used as a raw
material for the production of many petrochemical products
specially urea and methanol. To employ CO2 in each of petro-
chemical plants, complete assessments of the market demand,
other raw materials and the ways that CO2 can be provided are
required [13,14].
Through the following reactions (Sabatier reaction), converting
CO2 into methane and methanol is possible [15]:
CO2 þ 4H2 4 CH4 þ 2H2O, DH298 K ¼ 165.0 kJ/mol (1)
CO2 þ 3H2 4 CH3OH þ H2O, DH298 K ¼ 49.4 kJ/mol (2)
According to the thermodynamic point of view and with regard
to the range of the required temperature and pressure to perform
each of these reactions, converting the carbon dioxide to methane
is more probable, as compared to the methanol product [11].
Nevertheless, compared to methane, converting CO2 into methanol
is more favorable due to lower consumption of the expensive
hydrogen gas. Also the cheaper storage and the valuable derivatives
of methanol such as dimethyl ether, make its production more
attractive than methane. If from an environmental point of view
conversion of CO2 into methanol is carefully studied while
hydrogen is obtained from the water electrolysis, the production of
methanol from CO2 would be justifiable [16]. In this regard, several
units have been so far made that are in operation [17]. The first
commercial plant of methanol production from CO2 using hydrogen
from water electrolysis, was constructed in Iceland [17]. However,
to prevent the reproduction of CO2, the electricity needed for the
plant operation is better to be provided from the renewable energy
sources such as wind and solar energy [12,18]. However, using CO2
in order to synthesize these products rather than removing it from
the cycle, only delays its entrance into the environment.
Another product, obtained from carbon dioxide, is urea. Urea is
widely used in the fertilizer industries as a rich source of nitrogen
[19]. Urea is non-toxic and has the lowest transportation cost per
unit of the nitrogen nutrition. Furthermore, urea is a raw material
for the production of many important chemical compounds such as
various plastics, resins and adhesives. Some of its derivatives are
urea-formaldehyde and urea-melamine-formaldehyde and urea-
nitrate explosives material [19]. Reports indicate that, nowadays,
approximately 180 Mt/y of urea is produced in the world [20]. To
produce this amount of urea, 132 Mt/y of CO2 is required [20]. The
most common method for production of urea is reforming natural
gas, producing carbon dioxide and ammonia [21]. Then urea is
formed based on the reaction (3) [22]:
2NH3 þ CO2 4 NH2CONH2 þ H2O. (3)
In fact, the above reaction is composed of two steps. First, the
ammonium carbamate (NH2OCONH4) is produced from the het-
erogeneous reaction of ammonia and carbon dioxide as in reaction
(4). Then, after the formation of ammonium carbamate in the liquid
state, urea is formed by dehydration of ammonium carbamate by
reaction (5):
2NH3 þ CO2 4 NH2OCONH4, (4)
NH2OCONH4 4 NH2CONH2 þ H2O. (5)
Carbon dioxide also can be produced from combustion.
Considering, CO2, nitrogen, and water as the main products of the
combustion process, capturing of CO2 and removing water from the
combustion gas can lead to produce almost a high purity N2. The
latter product in the reaction with hydrogen provides ammonia by
the reaction (6):
N2 þ 3H2 4 2NH3, DH298 K ¼ 11.04 kcal/g-mol. (6)
Therefore, the production of urea by reaction of ammonia with
CO2, which is captured from combustion flue gases, would increase
the economic justification of CO2 capture unit. In addition, the
stoichiometry of methanol and urea reactions show that equal
hydrogen required in the production of both materials whilst urea
has a more demand in the global marketing than all of the
obtainable materials from CO2 [23]. Moreover, it is remarkable that
more than half of the CO2 produced in the world is used for urea
production [24]. Thanks to its global demand that is approximately
three times higher than methanol, the global price of the urea is
higher than methanol [20]. Regarding to this fact, its production
would be more feasible, specifically when the process design is
carried out according to the combustion gas contents. As in addi-
tion to CO2 removal, nitrogen, the largest byproduct of the com-
bustion process, can also be used.
1.3. The urea synthesis
Generally, three main industrial methods exist for the urea
production from the natural gas feedstock as shown in Fig. 1. As it is
shown in all of these methods, after purification and desulfuriza-
tion, the natural gas converts to the syngas in a reforming unit. Due
to the serious poisonous nature of CO2 molecules to the ammonia
production catalyst, this component should be removed and
reduced to less than 1% in other units such as CO2 separation,
methanation and/or cryogenic units. Furthermore, this leads to
decrease the size of equipment, operating and total costs, and in-
creases the conversion rate in the ammonia unit. Finally, CO2 and
 E. Koohestanian et al. / Energy 144 (2018) 279e285
Fig. 1. BFD of a conventional process for urea production [21].
NH3 convert to urea and water in urea unit.
In addition to the configurations shown in Fig. 1 which are
designed based on pre-combustion process, recently Edrisi et al.
[21] proposed a new configuration to the urea production based on
chemical looping. However, the chemical looping is the most
expensive method in the field of CO2 capture technology.
1.4. Objective of this study
In spite of the Kyoto agreement, in which member states are
being forced to reduce emissions of CO2, the level of pollutants in
the world is continuously increased. Despite the existence of
political-economical legislations in many countries, encouraging
industries to reduce these pollutants have been not so effective.
Therefore, it is required to provide other solutions and/or economic
interests within, to encourage industries putting the environmental
concerns into consideration. In this research, to the best of our
knowledge, for the first time, the investigation on the production of
the urea (as the most proper product) from the flue gases are
presented and an appropriate process design is proposed. Contrary
to the published researches and processes proposed recently
[10,21], this process design was carried out using all of the com-
bustion products to decrease the environmental effects as less as
possible. To reduce time and cost of process design, an accurate
simulation can help identify and eliminate the deficits before the
detailed design step and the final construction [25]. In order to
increase the accuracy of the simulation, implemented thermody-
namic equations on each unit are chosen based on the components
and processes.
2. Simulation details and methods
2.1. Choosing the most proper process and product using a shortcut
calculation
A further investigation is provided in this section to compare the
capacity of producing urea, methanol, and ammonia from the real
flue gas using shortcut calculations. The specifications of flue gas
data are taken from 1600 MW brown coal-fired power plant in
Victoria's Latrobe Valley [26]. In this regard, Douglas suggests in
designing a new process, primarily calculations are accomplished
by simplifying assumptions [13]. However, after doing these cal-
culations and selection the most proper product in this section, the
process will be simulated more accurately.
To simplify the problem, the following assumptions are made:
281
- NOX and SOX components were ignored.
- The side reactions were not regarded.
- The loss of materials is negligible.
- The efficiency of all separation and reaction processes is
assumed 100%.
- Additive components are not used.
2.2. Hybrid CO2 capture process
The compression and purification unit (CPU) lately proposed by
International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas (IEAGHG) [27]. It is
reported as a cost effective process when compared to the distil-
lation process [28]. However, recovery of CO2 from a feed stream is
so low when compared to amine scrubbing process [28,29]. Simi-
larly, due to the high concentration of CO2 in the oxy-fuel com-
bustion process and high corrosion rate [29], it is not suggested to
use the amine scrubbing process individually. Therefore, in this
research, the hybrid process was used to increases the CO2 recovery
and decrease the corrosion rate.
Particulate matter such as fly ash can be removed by various
methods such as electrostatic precipitators or bag filters [30]. If
absorption process for capturing of CO2 is used, the flue gas tem-
perature should be reduced to about 30  C before feeding to this
process, to minimize the solvent losses due to evaporation as well
as to reduce the separation cost [9]. Therefore, in the most of these
industries, this operation was implemented using direct contact
cooler which flue gas is cooled down by quenching water [9]. Also,
this operation forces water condensation, removes the most of the
water vapor in the flue gas and reduces corrosion and erosion, due
to prohibiting the hydrate formation [9,31]. The composition of the
flue gas varies with the type of fuel and CO2 capture technology. In
all urea units, sulfur oxides (SOX) should be reduced to less than
10 ppm in the desulfurization process before entering to the
reforming unit [30]. Because of the necessity of removing sulfur in
all power plants due to the corrosion control, using its flue gases as
feedstock to the urea plant, leads to have an allowable sulfur level in
the urea feed. Therefore, this component has been ignored in our
design calculation and the plant does not require an additional
sulfur removal process. Nitrogen oxide is another pollutant in the
majority of the power plants flue gases. Furthermore, using
chemical absorption processes such as amine scrubbing process, in
presence of SOX and NOX, heat stable amine salts can be formed
which cause a high rate of corrosion in the separation equipment
[32]. Therefore as SOX, NOX should be reduced as much as possible
before feeding to amine process. Nitrogen oxides can be reduced to
less than 100 ppm using various methodologies such as the humid
air method, exhaust gas recirculation or low NOX burners [30,31].
So, these units were compulsory if the amine scrubbing process
was used. However, according to the literature results [28,31], these
components are in the standard range in oxy-fuel combustion flue
gases in CO2-CPU process.
In this study, the ammonia was used as a solvent in the
absorption-stripping process. This solvent is able to absorb CO2
about 2e3 times more than amine solvents [33] while, it has low
energy consumption compared to the amine [34]. Because of
presence of ammonia, the process will not require additional sol-
vents. The process flow diagram (PFD) of the proposed hybrid
process was depicted in Fig. 2.
In order to increase the accuracy of the simulation, as suggested
by previously published researches, the Peng-Robinson and Elec-
trolyte NRTL thermodynamic equation of states were used for CO2-
CPU and ammonia processes, respectively [28,35]. Furthermore, the
temperature-dependent binary parameters (kij) were modified
accordingly, using the experimental data summarized in Table 1.
282 E. Koohestanian et al. / Energy 144 (2018) 279e285

Plant A: CO2-CPU processs.

Plant B: Ammonia scrubbing process.

Fig. 2. Hybrid process flow sheet.

In present work, the flue gas specifications (stream S-1 in Fig. 2) In the hybrid process, to increase the efficiency of the CO2 re-
for oxy-fuel combustion were taken purely from the literature data covery, the outlet gas stream of CO2-CPU (S-16) inters directly to the
[28,29]. After validation of the simulation using the data [29], CO2- ammonia scrubbing process where CO2 will be absorbed by
CPU configuration redesigned and modified based on a hybrid ammonia content in recycle stream (RECYCLE3). According to this
process in Aspen Plus® (version 2006.5) environment. Absorber advantage, the ammonia production within the process reduces the
and stripper column in the ammonia scrubbing process were concerns about the solvent supply. As depicted in Fig. 2, unab-
simulated using RadFrac model. sorbed CO2 in the stream S-16, was removed by the ammonia sol-
vent in the absorber column (ABSORBER), subsequently, in order to
desorption of CO2 from the enriched ammonia, this stream enters
Table 1
The experimental kij interaction coefficients for PengeRobinson equation of state
to the stripping column (STRIPPER). As one knows, the absorption
[29]. and desorption processes are exothermic and endothermic pro-
cesses, respectively. Therefore, some of the required energy for
Comp. i Comp. j kij
endothermic stripping process provide by the HX1 and HX2 heat
CO2 Ar 0.1230 exchangers. In the stripping column, CO2 releases. The lean absor-
CO2 O2 0.1160
bent stream (RECYCLE) exchanges its energy with a rich absorbent
CO2 N2 0.0115
CO2 SO2 0.0559 stream (RICH-AMM) and mixed with makeup ammonia stream
O2 N2 0.0119 (MAKEUP) before entering to ABSORBER as recycle stream
 E. Koohestanian et al. / Energy 144 (2018) 279e285
(RECYCLE3). However, if the hybrid process is used in urea pro-
duction plant, the stripping column can be omitted and the output
of absorber column can be fed directly to urea unit.
2.3. The urea synthesis unit
After purification in the hybrid process, the exhaust flue gas
stream enters into the urea unit as the carbon dioxide feed stream.
The specification of this stream was taken from our previous work
[29]. The mass flow rate of feed stream was set up about 3 times of
Victoria's Latrobe Valley power plant in order to future revamping
and disturbance rejection of undesired loads. PFD of urea unit was
set-up based on the Stamicarbon process. This process is a common
procedure in urea production based on the full recycle of unreacted
materials [36,37]. The urea process was modeled in Aspen Plus®
(version 2006.5) environment using Schwartzentruber-Renon (SR-
POLAR) thermodynamic equation of state. The SR-POLAR is rec-
ommended for the highly non-ideal processes at high temperatures
and pressures, such as urea, methanol, and supercritical extraction
applications by AspenTech company [38].
According to Fig. 3, the liquid part of urea reactor (UREA-R)
effluent that contains ammonium carbamate (NH2COONH4) and
urea is fed to a High Pressure Stripper (HPS) where the ammonium
carbamate is removed by its thermal decomposition to NH3 and
CO2. HPS is a vertical shell and tube heat exchanger. In pipe side,
liquid effluents of UREA-R contacts with CO2 stream from hybrid
unit counter-currently. As the flow of gas and liquids are counter-
current, HPS is simulated as a reactive distillation model. Because
of the endothermic decomposition reaction of ammonium carba-
mate, the necessary heat will be provided by condensation of
saturated vapor (2066 kPa) in the shell side. The output flow from
the top of HPS (S25) will be recycled to High Pressure Condenser
(HPC). The most content of this stream is constituted ammonia and
CO2. In HPC some ammonium carbamate and urea are made. The
effluent of HPC is fed to UREA-R. Formation of the ammonium
carbamate is an exothermic process, therefore production rate will
be controlled by the heat of reaction in UREA-R [22,36]. The vapor
part of UREA-R effluent that contains NH3 and some inert, is vented
(VENT) after separation of NH3. This NH3 stream is also recycled to
HPS.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Shortcut calculation results
The results based on shortcut calculations are summarized in
Table 2. According to Table 2, results show that if the electrolysis
process is used to produce hydrogen, a considerable magnitude of
oxygen will be produced. Therefore, the process must redesign
based on the oxy-fuel combustion procedure. In addition, produc-
ing the urea not only helps to decrease the amount of CO2 and N2
but also has a higher mass production flow rate (about 1.8 times)
compared to other products. Moreover, the high purity of CO2 gas
Fig. 3. PFD of urea unit based on Stamicarbon process.
283
enhances the conversion rate of the urea in the reactor [37]. This
can be, on its own, an encouraging factor for industries to be
persuaded for higher levels of purification of CO2 and also its
removal. Moreover, higher levels of purification during the CO2
removal will consequently result in higher process costs. Although
it is well known that plenty of carbon dioxide is emitted as a
pollutant to the atmosphere. In this regard, a wide range of re-
searches have been directed in the field of CO2 captures, so far, the
recovery of CO2 from the flue gas with the aim of producing urea
has not been investigated. In a physical point of view, trans-
portation and storage of solid urea are more feasible than storage of
CO2 gas on underground storage reservoirs or other common
storage methods. Therefore, this process might be more feasible
when compared with storing in the underground storage reservoirs
or the EOR technology. Based on the proposed hypothesis in this
research work, the conceptual design and simulation of the process
are presented, which can be considered as a preliminary theoretical
study in order to provide useful information for the proposed
process design step.
3.2. New process for CO2 capture from the flue gases to produce
urea and ammonia
The block flow diagram (BFD) of the overall proposed process,
according to the above considerations, is shown in Fig. 4:
In this process, some of the oxygen required for the combustion
chamber of the power plant is produced by the water electrolysis
unit. Thus, further to increase the efficiency of the combustion
process and using the advantage of the oxy-fuel combustion,
hydrogen byproduct is also used in the ammonia production unit.
In addition, high purity oxygen produced in the electrolysis unit can
be utilized as an oxidizing agent to reduce the corrosion in the
stainless steel equipment in the urea plant [36]. Due to neglected
amounts of the consumption of this component, it is ignored in the
design calculations. The rest of oxygen required for the combustion
chamber is provided from the ASU. The produced nitrogen in
downstream is used in the ammonia unit. However, the oxygen,
fuel and make-up oxygen from ASU are directed into the combus-
tion unit of the power plant. A part of the flue gases from stack after
filtering to remove ash and other particulates is recycled to the
combustion chamber in order to control the flame temperature.
After the initial cooling and dehydration, the flue gases is fed to the
CO2 capture unit. In the ammonia plant, hydrogen from the elec-
trolysis unit and nitrogen from the ASU are used to produce
ammonia. Finally, the ammonia and CO2 are combined as reactants
in the urea unit leading to form the urea and water by reaction (3).
To avoid environmental problems and reduce the water con-
sumption, also in order to increase the process efficiency, the water
byproducts from the power station and the urea unit are collected,
treated in reverse osmosis unit and returned to the electrolysis unit.
Since commonly the flue gases are vented into the atmosphere;
in this work, we consider no price for the flue gas as a raw material
in the CO2-CPU. As other proposed processes in the literature, it is
also assumed that the electricity for the electrolysis unit is provided
using renewable energies such as solar power or obtained in off
peak time [16,17]. In addition, the economic potential will be
increased significantly, especially if the tax applies to the exit flue
gas, which was ignored in this study. Based on the output streams
results from CO2-CPU, mass and energy balances in urea unit, as the
final proposed plant, were summarized in Table 3. These results,
based on 2036 kg/hr of flue gas in oxy-fuel combustion, reveal that
removing 1700 kg/hr CO2 (which not easily back to the environ-
ment because of the long half-life of urea) will produce 2856 kg/hr
molten urea that worth about 3.5
106 US$/year. Contrary to pre-
vious researches that used the only CO2 in their design, this work is
284 E. Koohestanian et al. / Energy 144 (2018) 279e285

Table 2
Obtainable products based on the typical real flue gas.

Mass flow Flue gas specifications [26] Hydrogen Ammonia Urea Methanol
kg/hr producible producible producible producible

Methanol 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 496.50

Urea 0.00 0.00 0.00 930.61 0.00
Ammonia 0.00 0.00 527.81 0.00 0.00
CO2 1297.42 1297.42 1297.42 615.45 615.45
N2 3938.64 3938.64 3504.54 3504.54 3938.64
O2 253.97 997.75 997.75 997.75 997.75
H2 0.00 93.71 0.00 0.00 0.00
H2O 837.50 0.00 0.00 279.64 279.64
Ar 72.47 72.47 72.47 72.47 72.47

research. Using the appropriate thermodynamic equations in each

Fig. 4. BFD of the proposed process in this research.
based on the consideration of the main components in combustion
products that shows a good improvement to those designs.
Economical evaluation of the process was not investigated in this
research, but it is obvious that due to the cost of removing the CO2
from flue gases based on Kyoto agreement, this procedure will be
invaluable even if all the income from the production of urea, is
spent on equipment, manpower, energy, etc. Furthermore, unlike to
the previous solutions, this process changes the CO2 from annoying
contaminants to some valuable and useful products. However, the
urea is among the most profitable products in petrochemical
industries.
4. Conclusions
The technical investigation of the urea and ammonia production
from the oxy-fuel combustion of flue gases was addressed in this
section of the process and modifying their interaction parameters
using experimental data, it was attempted to increase the accuracy
of the simulation. The results of this study highlighted that if the
appropriate process was designed for the utilization of CO2 in flue
gases, not only it would reduce the environmental risks, but also
more than 1.68 tons urea per ton of CO2 would be produced.
Considering 14892 tons of CO2 removal annually by the designed
plant, the produced urea would be valued about 3.5 US million US
dollars. As found in this research, CO2 was the limiting reactant for
the urea production. Thus, compared to the previous designs by
other researchers, the proposed process would be the most
appropriate one in terms of environmental issues. Moreover, the
CO2 capture process from the post-combustion was suggested for
the investigation of producing urea and ammonia whilst optimi-
zations of different separation processes and involved parameters
would help to improve economic factors. However, the technology
readiness levels of this new process need to be increased by
establishing a pilot plant followed by a bench set up. In addition, it
is suggested to consider more investigations to detailed economical
evaluation, identifying process weaknesses, calculation of detailed
design results, mass and energy integration, unit optimization and
determination of the appropriate control parameters. As all three
main elements of urea production in the proposed flowsheet are in
three individual streams (CO2 from flue gases, H2 from electrolysis
and N2 from ASU), it also will be worthwhile studying the design
parameters and economic assessment of process if the CO2 purifi-
cation unit (hybrid unit) is omitted, and the CO2 stream is scrubbed
directly with ammonia in urea plant.

Table 3
Mass and energy balance around urea plant.

Stream name Raw materials Product streams Other simulated output streams

CO2 NH3 PRODUCT VENT S22 S23 S24 S27 S28

Mole Frac.
Urea 0 0 0.500028 7.476E-8 0.000542 0.000721 0.159063 0.000398 0.183730
Carbamate 0 0 0 4.277E-7 0.051894 0.234222 0.102510 5.22E-05 0.118438
CO2 0.9773 0 0 0.614918 0.191076 0.089018 0.039217 0.212465 0.012283
NH3 0 1 0 0.004944 0.646408 0.529593 0.404845 0.658160 0.365465
H2O 0 0 0.499835 0.006420 0.100135 0.133216 0.282082 0.041055 0.319552
N2 0.0148 0 2.435E-5 0.245598 0.008655 0.011514 0.010690 0.077029 0.000377
O2 0.0078 0 0.000112 0.128118 0.001290 0.001716 0.001593 0.010842 0.000155
Ar 0.0067 0
Total Flow 39.85 73.26 73.64 2.35 285.31 214.65 231.18 31.10 200.08
kmol/hr
Total Flow 1700.00 1246.56 2856.66 89.90 6939.19 7300.81 7300.79 740.61 6560.18
kg/hr
Temperature 373.15 307.15 345.54 362.54 414.37 440.15 456.15 456.15 456.15
K
Pressure 15690.6 13827.4 13827.4 13827.4 13827.4 13827.4 13827.4 13827.4 13827.4
kPa
Liquid Frac. 0 1 1 0 0.327818 0.587905 0.865454 0 1
 E. Koohestanian et al. / Energy 144 (2018) 279e285 285

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