DOE Gives $36M to 15 Carbon-Capture Projects

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it will provide $36 million for 15 projects aimed at furthering the development of new and cost-effective technologies for the capture of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the existing fleet of coal-fired power plants.

"Currently, the existing U.S. coal fleet accounts for over half of all electricity generated in this country," U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman said. "The projects announced today will combat climate change and help meet current and future energy needs by curbing CO2 emissions from existing coal-fired plants."

The 15 projects will focus on five areas of interest for CO2 capture: membranes, solvents, sorbents, oxycombustion (flue gas purification and boiler development), and chemical looping.

Membrane-based CO2 capture uses permeable or semi-permeable materials that allow for the selective transport and separation of CO2 from flue gas. Selected projects include:

• Membrane Technology and Research Inc. (Menlo Park, Calif.)-Researchers will prepare commercial-scale membrane modules. The new research will involve the construction of an approximately 1-ton-of-CO2-per-day membrane skid for use in a 6 month pilot-scale field test with real coal-fired flue gas.
• Research Triangle Institute (Research Triangle Park, N.C.)-Research Triangle Institute (RTI) researchers will focus on novel high-performance membrane materials, improved hollow-fiber membrane module design, and process development for efficient integration of the CO2-capture system into an existing coal-fired power plant.

Solvent-based CO2 capture involves chemical or physical sorption of CO2 from flue gas into a liquid carrier. Solvent-based systems are in commercial use today scrubbing CO2 from industrial flue gases and process gases; however, they have not been applied to removing large volumes of CO2, as would be encountered in the flue gas from a coal-fired utility boiler.

• Georgia Tech Research Corporation (Atlanta, Ga.)- The objective of this project is to develop a novel class of solvents, called "reversible ionic liquids," to capture CO2 from coal-fired power plant flue gas. Reversible ionic liquids are essentially "smart" molecules that change properties abruptly in response to some stimulus.
• GE Global Research (Niskayuna, N.Y.)-In this project, researchers will use both computational and laboratory methods to identify and produce novel oligomeric solvents for post-combustion capture of CO2 from coal-fired power plants.
• Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, Illinois State Geological Survey (Champaign, Ill.)-The Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS) plans to develop an integrated vacuum carbonate absorption process (IVCAP) for post-combustion CO2 capture. This process employs potassium carbonate as an absolvent and can be uniquely integrated with the power plant steam cycle by using the waste steam or low-quality steam from the power plant.

Solid particles can be used to capture CO2 from flue gas through chemical absorption, physical adsorption, or a combination of the two. Possible configurations for contacting the flue gas with the solid particles include fixed, moving, and fluidized beds.

• ADA-ES, Inc. (Littleton, Colo.)-The objective of this project is to assess the viability and accelerate development and scale-up of sorbent-based CO2 capture. Investigators will evaluate sorbents at laboratory- to bench scale for their performance in a CO2 capture process.
• SRI International (Menlo Park, Calif.)-SRI International will develop a novel, high-capacity carbon sorbent with moderate thermal requirements for regeneration.
• TDA Research Inc. (Wheat Ridge, Colo.)-In this project, TDA Research Inc. will produce and evaluate its low-cost solid sorbent developed in prior laboratory testing. A bench-scale CO2 capture unit will be designed and constructed using the developed sorbent, and it will be tested on a coal-derived flue gas.

Oxycombustion systems combust a fuel in pure or nearly pure oxygen, producing a flue gas that has high CO2 concentration but may also include water, excess oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, mercury, and other contaminants. Projects in this research area will develop methods to reduce the levels of these unwanted compounds in the flue gas.

• Air Products and Chemicals Inc. (Allentown, Pa.)-Researchers in this project will demonstrate the feasibility of purifying the CO2 derived from an actual oxycombustion flue gas. Special attention will be paid to acidic impurities within the captured CO2 product such as sulfur oxides, hydrogen chloride and nitrogen oxides.
• Praxair Inc. (Tonawanda, N.Y.)- Praxair will develop a near-zero emissions flue gas purification technology for existing pulverized-coal power plants retrofitted with oxycombustion technology. Goals of this project are to cost-effectively capture more than 95% of CO2 emissions from a boiler with high air ingress. A

The characteristics of oxycombustion have not yet been fully developed. Oxycombustion flame characteristics, burner and coal-feed design, and analyses of the interaction of oxycombustion products with boiler materials are all areas needing further work. The research projects selected in this area of interest will conduct laboratory- and bench-scale research into oxycombustion boiler characteristics and innovative oxy-burner design.

• Alstom Power Inc. (Windsor, Conn).-A test program to develop an oxycombustion system for tangentially fired (T-fired) coal boiler units will be conducted in this project by Alstom. T-fired boilers make up 44% of the installed base of utility boilers in the world and 41% in the United States.
• Foster Wheeler North America Corp. (Livingston, N.J.) -Foster Wheeler will conduct an in-depth test program to determine how oxycombustion will affect the life of electric utility boiler tube materials.
• Reaction Engineering International (Salt Lake City, Utah)-In this project, investigators will conduct multi-scale experiments, coupled with mechanism development and computational fluid dynamics modeling, to elucidate the impacts of retrofitting existing coal-fired utility boilers for oxycombustion.

Chemical looping involves the use of a solid oxygen carrier particle in the combustion of fuels. The oxygen carrier particle is oxidized in one reactor and is used to combust the fuel in another reactor. Projects in this area of interest will advance the development of chemical looping systems by addressing key issues such as solids handling and oxygen carrier capacity, reactivity, and attrition.

• Alstom Power Inc. (Windsor, Conn.)-This project will further development of Alstom’s chemical looping technology for CO2 capture and separation. The technology uses a limestone-based oxygen carrier to create power from coal while creating a concentrated CO2 flue gas.
• The Ohio State University Research Foundation (Columbus, Ohio)-Coal direct chemical looping (CDCL) technology will be further developed under this project. CDCL technology can be retrofitted to existing pulverized-coal power plants to efficiently convert coal while capturing CO2 through the assistance of a patented iron oxide-based composite oxygen carrier particle.

These awards are part of DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy’s Innovations for Existing Plants (IEP) program, which is managed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL).