In this work, a perspective is given on the development lines for CO 2 post-combustion capture technology. Guidelines for cost reductions and suggestions for future research on solvent and process development are presented. By analyzing the post-combustion capture process in this work, it is evident that to achieve significant reduction of the capture process cost, multiple process parameters need to be improved. For future development of CO2 post-combustion capture process, it would be beneficial to direct the solvent development research towards solvents systems, which have lower reaction enthalpy and higher solvent capacity. A significant improvement can be obtained by the development of solvent systems where the solvent is regenerated at higher pressure. In addition, smart process improvement and integration are required to achieve a reasonable cost reduction. It can be expected that by improving the process design and the solvent, implementation of post combustion capture on larger scale will be possible in the near future. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.