Enhancement of Carbon Capture Reactor Performance [AOI-4]

DE-FOA-0002515 Project Summary Enhancement of Carbon Capture Reactor Performance [AOI-4] Project Title DE-FOA-0002515, Carbon Capture R&D for Natural Gas and Industrial Point Sources, and Front-end Engineering Design Studies for Carbon In Response To Capture Systems at Industrial Facilities and Natural Gas Plants Applicant University of Kentucky Research Foundation (UKRF) Principal Investigator Jesse Thompson Co-Investigator Partners Kunlei Liu EPRI Project Objectives The goal of the proposed project is to address the challenges that are still present in post-combustion CO2 capture and significantly advance the deployment of technologies through the design and testing of advanced components for NGCC CO2 capture plants. While constantly working to reduce the cost of CO2 capture via solvent development and process & heat integration, other critical elements still need to be addressed including how to increase CO2 mass transfer in the absorber column with L/G <1.2 while reducing the size of the absorber column to reduce capital costs. Research involving chemical mechanism with design, synthesis, and assembly of materials with targeted functionally will be combined with advanced additive manufacturing techniques towards development of enhanced CO2 capture reactors that can lead to safe, reliable, and low-cost carbon capture technologies. The objective of the proposed project is to develop and test novel carbon capture materials and reactor components that contribute to increased CO2 mass transfer through increased turbulent gas-liquid interface and improved solvent wetting within the reactor. A techno-economic analysis will be completed showing how the proposed technologies decrease capital costs. A technology maturation plan will also be developed to describe the current TRL’s and examine additional the R&D needed to further develop these advanced components for NGCC CO2 capture plants. The successful development of the proposed technologies will have a multitude of benefits to the CO2 capture community and the public. Most importantly, this work will help the deployment and reduce the costs of post-combustion NGCC CO2 capture technologies below 20% of DOE/NETL Case B31B and promote the utilization of abundant natural gas for production of reliable electricity. 1