Recent progress of the Ca-Cu technology for decarbonisation of power plants and carbon intensive industries

Highly efficient pre-combustion systems are sustainable alternatives for producing hydrogen with reduced carbon footprint. The Ca-Cu looping process is a novel CO ₂ capture process that combines Sorption Enhanced Reforming (SER) for the production of (almost) pure H ₂ with a Cu/CuO redox cycle to regenerate the CO ₂ sorbent with a low energy penalty and potential reduction in capture cost. Over the last few years, the Ca-Cu looping process has seen noticeable progresses in its development and has recently been demonstrated up to TRL4/5 within the Ascent EU project, under conditions that are relevant for a range of industrial applications. This work reviews the most recent achievements and open gaps of knowledge in the development of this emerging process, focusing on experimental validation performed in lab-scale fixed bed reactors and on techno-economic assessment of the application in industrial plants for hydrogen, ammonia and steel production.