Call 2 – Capture

Large reserves of shale gas and unconventional gases worldwide will ensure that hydrogen remains produced mainly via the catalytic steam reforming process (C-SR) for the next few decades. In conventional C-SR, the most energy intensive step is the production of syngas (CO+H₂) in the primary reformer which relies on fired heaters in large scale furnaces. SR plants need to be enormous in order to be economical due to syngas production stage and H₂ purification steps.

Aims of the project

Reduce energy and materials demand for the conversion of natural gases to high purity H₂, CO₂ and N₂ using chemical looping steam reforming with ‘sorption enhanced’ in situ calcium gassed CO₂ capture (SE-CLSR), thus making the conversion process economical at scales easily integrated strategic industries and distributed sources of gas feedstocks.

Main project funder category: UKCCSRC – Call 2
Funder name: UKCCSRC
Project date: Mar 2019
Lead institution: University of Leeds
Principal investigator(s): V. Dupont
Co-Investigator(s): S. Milne
Category: Capture
Primary research theme: Adsorption + Solids Absorption

Calcium looping shows significant promise for CO₂ capture. The process can lead to an energy penalty as low as 6 – 8 % including the compression of the lean CO₂ stream, compared to 9.5 – 12.5 % for amine-based post-combustion capture.

To implement this technology on an industrial scale, a large quantity of CaO-based sorbent will be required, therefore the sorbent must be capable of being regenerated and reused.

Main project funder category: UKCCSRC – Call 2
Funder name: UKCCSRC
Project date: Mar 2019
Lead institution: Imperial College London
Principal investigator(s): P.S. Fennell
Category: Capture
Primary research theme: Adsorption + Solids Absorption

This project focuses on enhancing the flexibility of amine based post-combustion capture systems:

1. To evaluate the flexible operation capabilities of current post-combustion CCS plant designs via dynamic scenario testing at pilot scale.
2. To identify hardware bottlenecks to dynamic operation and suggest improvements.
3. To develop new instrumentation, operating strategies and control systems which will enhance operational flexibility.
4. To obtain real plant data to complement dynamic modelling efforts.

Main project funder category: UKCCSRC – Call 2
Funder name: UKCCSRC
Project date: Mar 2019
Lead institution: University of Edinburgh
Principal investigator(s): M. Lucquiaud
Co-Investigator(s): P. Valluri
Category: Capture/Industry processes
Primary research theme: Industry CCS

Oxy-fuel (coal or biomass) combustion significantly changes the heat transfer properties of power plant furnaces. Thus future power plants using oxy-fuel technology will rely greatly on computational modelling. This project aims to collect combustion and heat transfer data from both small and large scale furnaces and to validate the computational model in order to make it ready for future technology scale up.

Specific objectives are:

• Take measurements at the 250 kW oxy-coal furnace at PACT national facilities in Sheffield, including combustion and heat transfer data.
• Take measurements at a 35 MW oxy-coal furnace in China.
• Validate CFD models developed and investigate the combustion and heat transfers properties in both large and small furnaces.

Main project funder category: UKCCSRC – Call 2
Funder name: UKCCSRC
Project date: Mar 2019
Lead institution: University of Sheffield
Principal investigator(s): L. Ma
Co-Investigator(s): J. GibbinsX. LiangW. NimmoM. Pourkashanian
Category: Capture/Oxyfuel
Primary research theme: Oxyfuel

The elevated cost of carbon capture and storage (CCS) is currently hindering its implementation at large scale. We aim to design a ‘perfect’ solvent for the capture of carbon dioxide (CO₂).

Main project funder category: UKCCSRC – Call 2
Funder name: UKCCSRC
Project date: Mar 2019
Lead institution: Imperial College London
Principal investigator(s): J. Hallett
Co-Investigator(s): N. Mac Dowell
Category: Capture
Primary research theme: Adsorption + Solids Absorption

Aqueous amine scrubbing is currently considered to be the best available technology of carbon capture for both pulverised fuel and natural gas power plants. A major problem is the thermo-oxidative degradation of chemical amine solvents used, leading to a range of operational problems and the generation of large quantities of hazardous aqueous waste. However, no existing technologies are able to effectively deal with these problems particularly the handling of the toxic waste solvent streams. The conversion of the degraded amines back to usable solvents or saleable products has been regarded as a novel effective way for cost reduction.

Aims and objectives

To investigate the feasibility of using reductive approaches, such as catalytic hydropyrolysis and hydrothermal treatments to rejuvenate the degraded amine solvents for reuse or convert them into highly value-added products.

Main project funder category: UKCCSRC – Call 2
Funder name: UKCCSRC
Project date: Mar 2019
Lead institution: University of Nottingham
Principal investigator(s): C. Sun
Co-Investigator(s): C.E. Snape, Y. Sun
Category: Capture/Post-combustion
Primary research theme: Amines on solids for CO₂ capture

Calcium (carbonate) looping is a promising carbon capture technology, which has been successfully demonstrated using a slip stream from the exhaust of a large-scale power plant. CO₂ is captured as CaCO3, and is then calcined to release a pure stream of CO₂ suitable for storage. The main advantage of this cycle is that the exothermic CO₂ capture stage takes place around 650°C and the heat released in the carbonation process can be used in a standard steam cycle.

The aims of this project are:

• To demonstrate the viability of enhanced calcium looping technologies for CCS using a pelletized spent lime stream.
• To demonstrate the viability of calcium looping for the removal of CO₂ from industrial gases (steel and iron industry and cement industry).
• To explore the use of enhanced Ca looping using HBr as doping agent.

Main project funder category: UKCCSRC – Call 2
Funder name: UKCCSRC
Project date: Mar 2019
Lead institution: Cranfield University
Principal investigator(s): E.J. Anthony
Co-Investigator(s): K. Patchigolla, M. Erans, Moreno, M. Jeremias, L. Duan
Category: Capture
Primary research theme: H₂/O2 Calcium based looping