London April 2017 Biannual: Poster Presentations and Drinks Reception

The UKCCSRC Spring 2017 Biannual, took place at Imperial College in London on the 12-13th of April.

After the first day of conference sessions – focusing on delivering CCS for the future -, the networking continued at the Poster presentation sessions, which was coupled together with a drinks reception. I opted for a glass of white wine and started to explore the exhibited posters.

The UKCCSRC biannual is always a great opportunity for networking with people from academia, industry and government, as well as meeting a good mix of people at various stages of their careers, and with experience of working both in the UK and abroad (including the US). At this session I was able to meet new people in the field of CCS from areas of my own background, which is carbon capture, as well as catch up with some familiar faces, too. I was very much interested in Wahyu Meka’s poster on his fundamental modelling work to understand the fate of trace elements from the combustion of waste or recycled wood, which is closely related to the pilot scale research I work on at the UKCCSRC PACT Core facilities (we are currently working on a project burning waste wood in the 250kW air/oxy-fired furnace). As Wahyu noted, UK production of wood waste is 4.5m tonnes per year, but only 16% of this is burned to generate electricity and heat. However, to better utilise this resource, which is currently just ending up at landfill, it is important to understand the fate of trace contaminants during the combustion process so that the appropriate emissions controls are applied to the process.

I was also very much enjoyed learning more about subjects from the other fields of CCS, including transport, storage and utilisation. There were altogether 25 ECR posters covering a wide variety of topics in these areas, and it was fascinating to hear about the latest developments here. 

The time went very quickly and I had to leave a few posters to consult the following day, but, like others, enjoyed continuing the conversations later that evening at the conference dinner.