CO₂ Flow Metering under CCS Conditions – Call 2 Project

Measurement and monitoring of CO₂ flows across the CCS chain are essential to ensure accurate accounting of captured CO₂ and help prevent leakage during transportation to storage sites. However, it is challenging to measure the CO₂ mass flow rate under CCS conditions due to the high pressure and temperature involved and the complex flow states (gas, liquid, two-phase or supercritical) in CCS pipelines. The Kent team recently completed the UKCCSRC Call 2 project CO₂ Flow Metering Through Multi-Modal Sensing and Statistical Data Fusion.

There were two main aspects of the project: the establishment of a dedicated CO₂ flow test facility for flowmeter calibration and evaluation under CCS conditions and the development of a prototype multi-modal sensing system and data fusion algorithms for mass flow metering of CO₂. We are delighted to report that all project objectives have been achieved successfully.

The CO₂ flow test facility developed is probably one of the very few in the world. This facility is capable of providing single-phase (liquid or gas) or two-phase (liquid/gas) CO₂ flows in one-inch bore, horizontal and vertical pipelines with pressures up to 72 bar. The precision weighing system as an integral part of the facility provides an uncertainty of 0.06% for CO₂ liquid flows. The reference Coriolis flowmeters equipped on the facility offer uncertainties of 0.16% for CO₂ liquid flows and 0.3% for CO₂ gas flows. Different two-phase flow regimes such as stratified, bubbly, plug and slug flows can be created. Impurity gases can also be injected into the test section to assess their impact on the performance of CO₂ flowmeters and pipeline materials. To design, build and commission the facility, a range of technical challenges have been overcome. The most challenging aspect of the work was related to the health and safety requirements of the key mechanical parts concerning the high pressure of CO₂ flow. During the commissioning stage of the facility, several high-pressure valves leaked and had to be replaced. Several versions of the sight windows for observing CO₂ flow regimes on the test sections failed before final working models were constructed and installed. Thanks to a concerted, collaborative effort between the Kent Instrumentation team, Krohne Ltd and researchers at Tianjin University and North China Electric Power University. Dr Lijun Sun as the RA working on the project played key role in this part of the project.

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