Carbon Clean Solutions Limited (CCSL) has signed a contract to test its solvent technology at Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM). The news follows the recent announcement of funding from the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) for test campaigns at TCM by GE, Alstom, and possibly the University of Kentucky (test site still to be decided).
CCSL, which was recently included in the World Economic Forum’s list of the 49 most promising global Technology Pioneers of 2015, could start its test campaign at TCM as early as November this year. CCSL’s chemical solvents can remove up to 50% more CO2 with the same energy requirement, thereby reducing the size of equipment and energy demand.
Tests to date have shown CCSL’s technology to have significantly improved energy efficiency and reduced solvent loss and degradation than its competitors, minimising overall operating costs. The company is now demonstrating its technology at TCM to generate long-term testing data at full scale carbon capture.
Aniruddha Sharma, CEO of CCSL, says: “Use of ineffective amines across the industry is the root cause of high corrosion, high energy demand and solvent loss, and our drop-in solvent technology has the potential to dramatically reduce this. Having demonstrated the technology at pilot scale at the National Carbon Capture Centre, USA, we believe that this demonstration with TCM can bring the technology to commercial readiness.”
GE, Alstom, and potentially the University of Kentucky (UoK) are also heading for TCM during Phase 1 of the DOE’s Carbon Capture Program. It is expected that two of NETL’s Phase 1 projects will then be granted Phase 2 awards for construction and implementation of pilot testing, anticipated by mid-2016.
The large scale testing will aim to demonstrate the technologies at industrial scale and provide final confidence in the maturity of the carbon capture technology for full scale commercial deployment, reducing emissions from power plants and other large industrial point sources of CO2.
GE chemists have developed a solution that uses a class of amino silicone compounds at various temperatures to capture and release carbon. These compounds are the same as those found in hair conditioners and fabric softeners. In hair products and washing machines, the compounds are used to soften hair or clothing. GE is using them to attach and wash out CO2 gas from a power plant flue stack. As part of Phase 1 funding, GE will advance planning of their Amino-silicone CO2 capture technology towards large scale pilot testing.
Phil DiPietro, Technical Manager, CO2 Capture and Separation, GE’s Oil and Gas Technology Centre, says: “For decades, scientists from around the world have focused their efforts on finding more effective, less expensive ways to reduce CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. GE scientists have developed an innovative solution to realise both goals, which works well in the lab. Through this project, we will have the opportunity to perform tests at a much larger scale to learn how to make it work in a power plant.”
The University of Kentucky Research Foundation will design, fabricate, install, and test a large-pilot facility that will illustrate an innovative carbon capture system integrated with an operating power plant. The novel concepts used in this project will improve the overall plant efficiency when integrated with a CO2 capture system and can be utilized to retrofit existing coal-fired power plants. Other partners include Electric Power Research Institute, Koch Modular Process Systems, WorleyParsons, Smith Management Group, and CMTA Consulting Engineers.
Alstom Power will conduct a 3-year large-scale pilot-plant program to implement several concepts for improving the attractiveness and lowering the overall cost of Alstom’s chilled ammonia process (CAP) CO2 capture technology. Alstom’s CAP has shown the ability to achieve greater than 90 percent CO2 capture while producing a high purity CO2 product stream. Other partners include Georgia Institute of Technology, General Electric Power & Water—Purecowater, and ElectroSep Inc.
The NETL project is part of a decade long collaboration between the US and Norway on CO2 Capture and Storage technologies, launched when the two governments first signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for bilateral cooperation on energy technology research, development and demonstration in 2004.