There are two main routes for amine emission. The first one is connected to volatile amine emission. The second route is amine emission via aerosols. Recently, it has been observed that under certain conditions and at specific test locations significant aerosol formation and emission can occur. To distinguish between the two routes for amine emission, a novel methodology has been developed. This methodology is based on the separation of the aerosols from the vapour phase in a controlled isothermal modus. To be able to do this, the design of the probe and the sampling procedure should fit to the operational circumstances and is of crucial importance to guarantee isokinetic sampling. The separation of the aerosols is done via an impactor. Using an impactor, not only the total mass of aerosols can be determined, but also the size distribution. At the end of 2013 and at the beginning of 2014, two aerosol measurement campaigns were performed at CO₂ Technology Centre Mongstad, Norway. The measurements indicate that small amounts of aqueous aerosols with a broad aerosol size distribution are present in the flue gas stream from gas turbine operations. The presence of aqueous aerosols does not necessarily imply significant amine emission from the amine process. Analysis of the aqueous aerosols indicates low amine content present in the aerosol fractions, and it seems evident that amines present in the gaseous phase inside the absorber column have not been transferred to the aqueous aerosols and by such the total amine emissions are very low.

This study aimed to identify the optimal techno-economic configuration of CO ₂ capture at steam methane reforming facilities using currently available technologies by means of process simulations. Results indicate that the optimal system is CO ₂ capture with ADIP-X located between the water-gas shift and pressure swing adsorption units. Process simulations of this system configuration showed a CO ₂ emission reduction of 60% at 41€/t CO ₂ avoidance. This is at the lower end of the range reported in open literature for CO ₂ capture at refineries (26-82€/t CO ₂) and below the avoidance costs for CO ₂ capture at natural gas-fired power plants (44-93€/t CO ₂). CO ₂ avoidance costs are dominated by the natural gas consumption, responsible for up to 66% of total costs. Using imported steam and electricity can reduce CO ₂ avoidance costs by 45%. Addition of small amounts of piperazine to aqueous MDEA solutions results in up to 70% smaller absorbers or 10% lower reboiler heat duty. Optimising the whole capture process instead of individual units resulted in lower piperazine concentrations than the common industrial practice (3mass% vs. 5mass%). Finally, keeping the solvent rate constant when operating the capture unit below its design load resulted in a lower specific energy for CO ₂ capture than when the solvent rate was downscaled with the syngas flow.