Reducing Electricity Penalty of Carbon Capture by Waste Heat Valorization in an Industrial Pulp Mill

Reducing Electricity Penalty of Carbon Capture by Waste Heat Valorization in an Industrial Pulp Mill | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Reducing Electricity Penalty of Carbon Capture by Waste Heat Valorization in an Industrial Pulp Mill Enzo Robano, Jens Klingmann, Hesameddin Fatehi This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-5828565/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 30 Sep, 2025 Read the published version in BioEnergy Research → Version 1 posted 5 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Industrial CO2 emissions, particularly from flue gases, pose significant challenges for climate change mitigation. Carbon capture, particularly with bioenergy (BECCS), offers a pathway to negative emissions. This study models an MEA-based carbon capture system using operational data from a stand-alone pulp mill, focusing on its energy impact and optimization strategies. The analysis distinguishes between high-quality steam, critical for electricity generation, and waste heat, which can be valorized for carbon capture. The thermal energy demand for capture was found to be 3.6 MJ/kg CO2, leading to a reduction in energy efficiency. Integration scenarios such as flue gas valorization, combustion air preheating, and a steam generation heat pump (SGHP) were evaluated to address this. The electrical energy penalty (EEP) was introduced as a metric to quantify power losses due to steam extraction. The results show that while flue gas valorization and air preheating offer limited benefits, the steam generation heat pump effectively reduces both steam dependency and electrical energy losses, enabling high CO2 capture efficiency with minimal impact on mill operations, with the SGHP achieving the lowest EEP of 0.50 MJ/kg CO2 and enabling a 90% CO2 capture rate. Carbon Capture Pulp mill MEA Process integration Optimization Energy saving Full Text Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 30 Sep, 2025 Read the published version in BioEnergy Research → Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Accept with minor revisions 20 Jul, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 20 Mar, 2025 Reviewers invited by journal 20 Mar, 2025 Editor assigned by journal 14 Jan, 2025 First submitted to journal 14 Jan, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-5828565","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":431521730,"identity":"0760db82-99b9-480e-849b-1bb5ec5fa098","order_by":0,"name":"Enzo Robano","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Lund University: Lunds Universitet","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Enzo","middleName":"","lastName":"Robano","suffix":""},{"id":431521731,"identity":"840e05b1-cf8d-40d2-a2be-ab3f4c488417","order_by":1,"name":"Jens Klingmann","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Lund University: Lunds Universitet","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Jens","middleName":"","lastName":"Klingmann","suffix":""},{"id":431521732,"identity":"56b0df5e-3465-4c72-b163-9da1bd996514","order_by":2,"name":"Hesameddin Fatehi","email":"data:image/png;base64,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","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8847-4600","institution":"Lund University: Lunds Universitet","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Hesameddin","middleName":"","lastName":"Fatehi","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-01-14 16:05:20","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-5828565/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-5828565/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[{"content":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12155-025-10888-y","type":"published","date":"2025-09-30T15:57:49+00:00"}],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":92885021,"identity":"5a1bfa1c-9c53-457e-930d-59294df2a9d5","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-10-06 16:14:09","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":2714584,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"CCPulpMill.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-5828565/v1_covered_8f85f8a7-2f19-4627-baa0-26afb3a66c2c.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"","formattedTitle":"Reducing Electricity Penalty of Carbon Capture by Waste Heat Valorization in an Industrial Pulp Mill","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":true,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"bioenergy-research","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"bere","sideBox":"Learn more about [BioEnergy Research](https://www.springer.com/journal/12155)","snPcode":"12155","submissionUrl":"https://submission.nature.com/new-submission/12155/3","title":"BioEnergy Research","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"em","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"Carbon Capture, Pulp mill, MEA, Process integration, Optimization, Energy saving","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-5828565/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-5828565/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"Industrial CO2 emissions, particularly from flue gases, pose significant challenges for climate change mitigation. 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