UKCCSRC September 2019 Conference: Flexible Funded Projects

Abigail Gonzalez Diaz, Newcastle University and Yongliang (Harry) Yan, Cranfield University, provide an overview of UKCCSRC Flexible Funded projects session, on day two of the UKCCSRC Autumn Programme Conference.

After the interesting and useful session of  UKCCSRC Core Research Project about CO₂ storage, the session of UKCCS Flexible Funded Projects kicked off.

Dr Vincenzo Spallina introduced the concept of chemical looping.

Dr Stuart Gilfillan prensented his work on tracking CO₂ miligation

First, Dr Vincenzo Spallina from Univeristy of Manchester proposed a novel concept of clean hydrogen and chemicals production via chemical looping. He presented the experimental facilities to investigate the concept of hydrogen production with chemical looping and also some promised results to scale-up this concept from the modeling. The next step is to do the process optimisation and combine chemical looping and other petro-chemical processess to exploit the combination of exothermic and endothermic reactions.

Dr Stuart Gilfillan, from University of Edinburgh, emphasized the role of evaluating the tracking of CO₂ migration. Lack of confidence in geologic CO₂ storage security is a barrier to implement CCS. Gilfillan presented the results of a numerical program that calculates the CO₂ storage security and leakage to the atmosphere over 10,000 years. The modelling results suggest that 98% of the injected CO₂ could be retained in subsurface over 10,000 years. Therefore, geological storage of CO₂ can be a secure climate change mitigation alternative, although long-term behaviour of CO₂ in the subsurface still remains a uncertainty. The next outcome is to solve the fate of CO₂ injected into the FRS and establish the effectiveness of inherent traces at identifying CO₂ mitugation.

Dr Sun Cheng-Gong introduced his project on solid-looping adsorption technology

Next, Dr Sun Cheng-Gong from University of Nottingham introduced the project of pilot-scale operation of slica-polyethyleneimine and activiated carbon adsorbents for CO₂ capture. It is concluded that solids looping adsorbent technology has the potential to reduce the cost of CO₂ capture for both power plants and industrial processess. The adsorbents have been tested under real process conditions to optimise thermo-oxidative stability, moisture sensitivty and dynamic adsorption capacities as a basis for scale up to MW demonstrations.

At the end, Dr Richard Porter from University College London gave a talk about the Optimisation of methanol production using the flue gas from steel manufacturer. The industry of the iron and steel industry represents one of the largest energy consuming in the world. There is a big oportunity for combining CCS and methanol production. The main challenges using the flue gas from iron and steel industry is its impurities e.g. N₂, CH4, NH3 and H₂O, because these increase the degradation of the selective catalyst during methanol production. Professor Richard is evaluating these issues in a pilot plant and via simulation. Methanol is used to produce many products e.g. gasoline, MTBE, clothes, chemicals, clothes, formaldehyde, acetic acid. The project presented by Professor Porter also covers  the construction and validation of the catalytic reaction mechanism and the assessment of the impact of catalyst and chemical reactor selection for methanol synthesis. In addition, techno-economic perfomance is included in the project.

This session was quite useful for the delegates, showing the up to date research activities in different areas of carbon capture and storage (CCS). It can be seen that the UKCCSRC Flexible Funds has provided huge support for these research activities and promoted the development of CCS technologies. It is a good opportunity for earlier career researchers (ECRs) to apply for this fund to assist the researchers to conduct their research.