Techno-economic assessment of advanced amine-based CO2 capture for blue SMR hydrogen production: Impacts of process integration, solvent choice, and optimization
ABSTRACT
Hydrogen is essential for decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors and meeting net-zero goals. This work demonstrates that strategic thermal integration of post-combustion CO2 capture with steam methane reforming (SMR) achieves 90% CO2 avoidance while maintaining economic competitiveness. Using Aspen Plus, rigorous ratebased simulation and sequential quadratic programming based thermodynamic parameter optimization, a techno-economic assessment of three solvent systems, monoethanolamine (MEA), piperazine (PZ) and MEA-PZ blends is presented. Optimized process parameters and the use of PZ as a solvent reduce energy and cost penalties by 40% and 18%, respectively compared to MEA. The base SMR plant delivers a levelized cost of hydrogen of $1.38/kg and 75.52% energy efficiency. With CO2 capture, the cost of CO2 captured is $45/t using piperazine, and the levelized cost of hydrogen rises modestly to $1.80/kg. Strategic solvent selection and process integration enables cost-effective, large-scale decarbonized hydrogen supply and provides a pathway for life cycle assessment to quantify environmental impacts.