In light of the discussion on climatic change and the dramatic influence on it of the anthropogenic release of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, efforts to develop techniques for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions are due to continue for years.

New technologies for Power Generation are currently discussed, in an effort to reliably reaching the goals of the Kyoto Protocol. The reduction of CO₂ emissions in power generation in Germany is currently being sought using different approaches. On the one hand there is the possibility of re-basing generation to carbon-poor or carbon-free fuels such as natural gas or uranium, in addition to using regenerative energy sources such as Solar, Wind, Geothermal or Water Power Generation.

The second possibility is to increase the efficiency of fossil fired Power Stations, so that the existing primary energy resources may be utilised for longer. The third possibility consists in separating the CO₂ out of the combustion flue gases and disposing of it in a climate-neutral manner. This can be achieved by separating the CO₂ from the stream either before or after the combustion chamber.  

The current research project examines actively the second and third approaches above. To it belongs the thermodynamic simulation of innovative power station concepts along with their technical and economic evaluation. In the project research was performed on the technical and economic aspects of the available technologies, aiming at providing the basis of model development and guide the further research directions. Furthermore a future concept of a power station with CO₂ retention was simulated using the commercial program Aspen Plus^®. This helped uncover hitherto unknown research gaps concerning the processes involved, and resulted in a first optimization of the plant process flow. In addition the technical and economic characteristics of this plant design were determined.