UKCCSRC September 2017 Biannual: Parallel Session D: Capture 2 Solids

An update on current research in the field of solids used for CO₂ capture and an excursion into CO₂ flow metering and its difficulties

The second part of the morning parallel sessions in Sheffield started with a presentation by Prof Ben Anthony from Cranfield University on the topic “UK demonstration of Enhanced Calcium Looping, and First Global Demonstration of Advanced Doping Techniques”.

He began his talk by explaining the basic principle concepts of Calcium Looping and pointing out successful pilot scale demonstration plants around the world in the scale of several MWth. Going from there Ben emphasised that the aim of his current research ambition is to demonstrate the viability of enhanced calcium looping technologies for CCS using pelletized spent lime particles. For this purpose his research team build a new 25 kWth pilot plant test rig and modified HBr-doping techniques to improve the capture efficiency of the process. He was able to show with several experimental campaigns that doping leads to higher capture efficiency by lowering the attrition tendency of the solvent. But most important Ben highlighted that the beauty of this process lies in the synergy effect between calcium looping and cement production. Calcium looping is not only able to decarbonise the cement industry, but would also provide cement stone as a raw material for cement production.

So although calcium looping may not be the most efficient capture technology in comparison with amine solvent CO₂ capture, it may offer significant advantages in the context of cement production.

The next presenter was Prof Ed Lester from the University of Nottingham. Ed set out to give an update on the current state of “Industrial Scale Manufacture of Sorbent Materials for Carbon Capture”.

His talk was governed by the idea to reduce the current commercial price of MOFs from around 10000 £/kg to one tenth of it to make it more competitive to other solid CO₂ sorbents. Its currently expensive price is mainly dominated by the small scale quantities produced. So based on Ed’s research the spin out from Nottingham University ‘Promethean Particles’ was established in 2007 and now owns the world’s largest continuous multi-material nanoparticle manufacturing plant.

Ed went on to give the audience a visual animated tour through the continuous hydrothermal synthesis process, which you can enjoy as well by following this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al5mG7bVAzE#action=share

Instead of heating an entire batch, the raw products, superheated water and a solution of metal salt, are continuously mixed together in a nozzle reactor, producing nanoparticulate materials. At the moment this leads to a continuous product steam of 1kg/min. So a promising step towards the next generation of reasonable priced MOFs, although’ as Ed concluded, without any meaningful demonstration of the potential for these materials, there will only be slow progress away from either no capture or amine based first generation capture.

And the last presenter of this session on the topic of “CO₂ Flow Metering through Multi-Modal Sensing and Statistical Data Fusion” was Dr Gang Lu from the University of Kent.

His aim is to develop a measurement of CO₂ flow across the CCS chain, which is challenging due to the natural complexity of the flow. Therefore a flow test facility, able to provide single- or two-phase CO₂ flows up to 72 bar, was developed and evaluated under CCS conditions. By incorporating Krohne Coriolis flowmeters and intelligent data fusion algorithms the facility is able to measure mass flow rates of CO₂ under either of the above mentioned phase flow conditions, as well as the volume fraction of CO₂ under two phase flow. The uncertainty of the measurement meets set EU-ETS requirements and should be soon tested in the presents of impurity gases flow conditions.

All in all a very informative session with very good presentations.

>>Get the slides from the biannual meeting