Spring Conference 2022 ECR blog series #9 – highlights from Flexible Funding Parallel session 2B

As part of our Spring Conference ECR blog series, Qi Huang, Queen’s University Belfast shares her experience of Flexible Funded Projects Session 2B.

Economical and feasible strategy for reducing global CO₂ level

It’s my great honour to have the opportunity to attend UKCCSRC 2022 conference held at the University of Sheffield. During the two days conference, I met many experts from different institution, and we discussed deeply about our research relating to the carbon dioxide capture and storage. Apart from that, I also gave a poster exhibition of my own research project about Light triggered carbon dioxide capture and release. Dr. Chenggong Sun as my judge gave many suggestions about poster making and also showed great interest in my research project. Thanks to the UKCCSRC funding for supporting me to attend this conference which gave me a meaningful experience.

Another highlight part of this conference I think is the UKCCSRC Flexible funded program. During this session, Allison Schaap introduced an interesting topic about improved offshore Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) monitoring by Sensor Enabled Seabed Landing AUV nodes. Offshore storage of carbon dioxide has been identified as an important way of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. I think such project can greatly contribute to alleviating the environmental problem of the increasing global CO₂ level. Allison introduced that Experimental studies have shown that detection of a carbon dioxide leakage from the seafloor can be done with sensors mounted on either autonomous underwater vehicles. a low-cost hybrid system called flying nodes can survey a large area in significantly less time than the traditional underwater vehicles. Therefore, the integration of chemical sensors and flying nodes is a more attractive and promising way.

Kranthi Jonnalagadda gave a presentation about Recovering liquefaction cost of captured carbon dioxide by cold energy utilisation and electric power generation. In order to be future ready to the capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) actions announced by UK government, we should give a more deep understanding of CCUS supply chain along with confidence in its economic viability. Considering this, ship-based transport of CO₂ is a better option when distances exceed 350 km compared to an offshore pipeline. During this shipping transport to the storage site, a significant amount of cold energy has to be expended to either precool the shipping container or dumping the cold energy to sea water during sequestration. Therefore, the research Recovering liquefaction cost of captured carbon dioxide is highly needed. This research aims to perform technical feasibility and economic viability of a novel cold storage concept to recover some of the energy cost on liquefying CO₂ for shipping transportation. I think this research project shows high potential to save many costs for CO₂ transportation.