Can carbon capture be new hope for mitigating CO2 emissions?

Category
Environment
Published
21st Oct, 2022

Context

Recently, the NTPC Vindhyachal in Madhya Pradesh limited has taken an initiative to capture the carbon as electricity production by coal accounts for 40% of the CO2 emissions.

About

India stands third among the GHG-emitting countries in the world, emitting 2,310 megatons of CO2 in 2019.
These scenarios necessitate the mitigation of GHG reduction in the country to combat the effects of climate change.
The pioneer project of a carbon capture plant installed in NTPC Vindhyachal is in line with this, which is designed to capture 20 tonnes of CO2 per day.
It uses modified ‘tertiary amine’ to capture CO2 from flue gas from fossil-fired power plants, with a purity of more than 99 per cent.
Tertiary amine (3^oamine): An amine in which the nitrogen atom is directly bonded to three carbons of any hybridization which cannot be carbonyl group carbons.
CO2 will eventually be integrated with hydrogen to produce 10 tonnes of methanol per day through a catalytic hydrogenation process.

Hydrogenation is a chemical reaction between molecular hydrogen (H₂) and another compound or element, usually in the presence of a catalyst such as nickel, palladium or platinum.

The process is commonly employed to reduce or saturate organic compounds.
Hydrogenation typically constitutes the addition of pairs of hydrogen atoms to a molecule, often an alkene.
Catalysts are required for the reaction to be usable; non-catalytic hydrogenation takes place only at very high temperatures. Hydrogenation reduces double and triplebonds in hydrocarbons.

Currently, there are no Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) projects in the pipeline in power plants for carbon capture in India.

The Carbon capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) Technique:

Carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), also referred to as carbon capture, utilization and sequestration, is a process that captures carbon dioxide emissions from sources like coal-fired power plants and either reuses or stores it so it will not enter the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide storage in geologic formations includes oiland gas reservoirs, un-mineable coal seams and deep saline reservoirs -- structures that have stored crude oil, natural gas, brine and carbon dioxide over millions of years.
The Energy Department supports research and development of tools to assess the environmental fitness and predictability of future capacity within -- proposed geologic storage sites.