Skip to main content

US DOE invests in carbon capture technologies

Published by , Assistant Editor
Hydrocarbon Engineering,


The US Department of Energy (DOE) has selected six projects for the Office of Fossil Energy’s Novel and Enabling Carbon Capture Transformational Technologies funding opportunity announcement (FOA), which will receive federal funding. The FOA will help address the cost and operational challenges associated with CO2 capture technologies. Some of the challenges that will be addressed include: improved reliability and operational flexibility; reduced capital costs; and a reduction of the high-energy penalty associated with operating existing technology.

The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) will manage the selected projects, which fall under two key Areas of Interest. Area 1 focuses on developing transformational materials and processes for CO2 capture that will enable step-change reductions in the capital and energy cost, while Area 2 focuses on enabling the technologies that facilitate improved performance of transformational CO2 capture processes to reduce capital cost and energy penalties, and improve operational reliability and flexibility.

The following projects were selected under Area of Interest 1:

  • Development and bench-scale testing of a novel biphasic solvent-enabled absorption process for post-combustion carbon capture – The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois will advance the development of the transformational biphasic CO2 absorption process (BiCAP) technology. It will also validate its technical advantages by testing an integrated BiCAP system at a bench scale in an actual flue gas environment. BiCAP is a post-combustion CO2 capture technology that has the energy efficiency advantage of a phase-transition process, while incurring low equipment and operating costs.
  • Bench-Scale development of a transformational graphene oxide-based membrane process for post-combustion CO2> capture – The Institute of Gas Technology dba Gas Technology Institute (GTI) will develop a transformational graphene oxide (GO)-based membrane process for installation in new, or retrofit into existing, pulverised coal (PC) or natural gas power plants. The process will be used for CO2 capture with 95% CO2 purity. The proposed process integrates GO-1 and GO-2 membranes, and will explore further reductions in the cost of CO2 capture. The successful development of the proposed technology will enable cost-effective capture of CO2 from flue gases.
  • Development of Self-assembly isoporous supports enabling transformational membrane performance for cost-effective carbon capture – Membrane Technology and Research, Inc. (MTR) will develop composite membranes with a transformational performance to reduce the cost of CO2 capture. The project consists of two parallel technology developments. The first development is to double membrane permeance by replacing conventional porous supports used to fabricate composite membranes with novel isoporous supports. The isoporous supports could overcome flow restrictions in conventional supports that hinder further improvement in carbon capture membranes. The second development is to double the mixed-gas selectivity of the MTR Polaris membrane by building on new materials work conducted at the University of New York.
  • Mixed-salt-based transformational solvent technology for CO2 capture – SRI International will develop a water-lean, mixed-salt-based transformational solvent technology that will provide a step-change reduction in the CO2 capture cost and energy penalty. The new formulation should improve the economics of CO2 capture.
  • A process with decoupling absorber kinetics and solvent regeneration through membrane dewatering and in-column heat transfer – The University of Kentucky Research Foundation is developing an intensified process to reduce the capital and operational costs associated with CO2 capture. This process could be applied to advanced solvents (aqueous or non-aqueous) and flue gas derived from natural gas combustion. The process consists of a temperature-controlled absorber; a membrane-based dewatering unit; and a multiple-feed pressurised stripper. Successful development of the proposed technology will include continued utilisation of abundant, low-cost coal to produce reliable electricity, while affordably meeting and managing environmental concerns.

The following project was selected under Area of Interest 2:

  • Flue gas aerosol pre-treatment technologies to minimise post-combustion CO2 capture solvent losses – Linde, LLC will research, develop, and validate enabling technologies for solvent aerosol emission mitigation of coal-based flue gas. The project will evaluate two flue gas aerosol mitigation technologies that have the potential to significantly reduce flue gas aerosol concentrations, which have been shown to contribute to amine losses in solvent-based post-combustion CO2 capture systems. The results will be used to benchmark the performance and cost of these technologies against existing options for pretreatment of coal-based flue gas for aerosol mitigation. The impact of this reduction in aerosol concentrations could be leveraged across a variety of solvent-based post-combustion CO2 capture systems to minimise solvent losses.

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/the-environment/26022018/us-doe-invests-in-carbon-capture-technologies/

You might also like

 
 

Embed article link: (copy the HTML code below):


 

This article has been tagged under the following:

Downstream news North America downstream news