UKCCSRC September 2017 Biannual: ECR Poster Prize Winners’ Presentation

I am Adeola Awoyomi and I recently attended the UKCCSRC Biannual Meeting Autumn 2017 which was held in Sheffield on the 11th and 12th September. The meeting included research activities in the new phase of the UKCCS Research Centre, a meeting of the UKCCSRC Scientific Council and special Early Career Researcher (ECR) sessions. The event was a successful one that provided a meeting point for different researchers to meet and enlighten conference delegates on what their research is all about. My research study is on CO₂ shipping; particularly on the reduction of carbon and sulphur emissions when the ship is in motion, supervised by Dr Kumar Patchigolla in Cranfield University. I will be considering the boil-off gas and carbon-dioxide emitted and liquefying them into the cargo tanks.

On the 12th September, the meeting began with a nice breakfast served to every attendee and thereafter was the ECR poster prize winner’s presentation. This was held paralleled with another session for Scientific Council Members only. 3 ECRs emerged as winners for the ECR poster prize on the broad topic of capture, storage and transport. The winners were Sergio Ramirez Solis, Revelation Samuel and Thomas Spitz. The winner’s presentation was held between the hours of 9 and 10 am.

Sergio’s poster was titled “High-temperature CO₂ sorption using sintering-resistant CaO/Saffil fibres Sorbents prepared by precipitation method” from the University of Leeds. His presentation enlightened the audience on his progress thus far in his studies including results and possible future work. He started from a brief introduction in his research, the materials and method used then the result obtained. According to Sergio, CaO has been conceived as a better alternative to other sorbents like LI2ZrO3 and LI4SIO4 due to its high carrying capacity and low production cost. The major drawback in the use of CaO is the loss of reactivity over repeated cycles of carbonation and calcination caused by sintering. Sintering causes some microstructural changes that affect the thermal and mechanical stability of CaO. The use of Saffil fibres can enhance the thermal properties and inhibits sintering. The sorbent was prepared by precipitation method with the following raw materials; Saffil fibres, calcium nitrate tetrahydrate, urea and water. Different sorbent loading was carried out and observed that the highest CO₂ capture capacity was attained when loaded with 25wt % of CaO. The carrying capacity of the sorbent was performed by using X-Ray Diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, and scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy.

The second presentation was made by Thomas Spitz, and his poster was titled “Operating flexibility of CO₂ injection wells”, from the University of Edinburgh. According to Thomas, the electricity system dictates the operating regimes of CCS plants, and the CCS system is required to handle a large and regular amount of fluctuations in CO₂ feed flows depending on operating regimes. He elaborated on different risks and possible solutions (operational and design) that could help injection wells cope better with the unstable flow rates. Some risks mentioned were hydrate formation, cracking of wellbore materials, hydrogen induced embrittlement, oscillations and vibrations.

Revelation Samuel gave the final presentation titled “Transient flow modelling of CO₂ injection into deep geological formations” from University College London. He presented well and eloquently and his message was understood well by the audience. Revelation’s research studies are focused on modelling the transient flow behaviour of CO₂ and developing economical techniques for geological sequestration. The head of the injection well to the reservoir is affected by several factors that could affect or change the temperature and pressure profiles along the well. Three steps were explained in the model development starting from the formulating the basic governing equations of the flow, implementing a method that simplifies the model equations and then to the model validation. Results gotten from the model were validated with experimental data, and it proved to be accurate at the inlet temperature of 10 °C and 20 °C. Future work will be extended to dealing with various impurities combination in CO₂ stream. The acknowledgement was given to his sponsor in Nigeria (Petroleum Technology Development Fund – PTDF) and his supervisor Prof Haroun Mahgerefteh.

At the end of the presentation, the chairperson, Bryony Livesey, Costain, concluded by encouraging all ECRs to maintain the urge to be better and learn from the poster winners in what they had done differently to emerge winners. This is the first time ECRs poster winners were given the privilege to present their research to conference delegates, and this I believe is a good opportunity to showcase their work and build confidence.

>>Get the slides from the biannual meeting