SINTEF Demonstrates Cost Effective CO2 Capture

SINTEF in Norway will lead a team of 10 partners from Europe to demonstrate a technology that captures CO₂ from air to run new power production plants.

The project, known as the DemoCLOCK project, has received €8.2 million from the European Union. The project intends to introduce a power production system that is less dependent on imported fossil fuels and overcomes the problem of climate change, while improving the competition among European Industries.

The project will utilize a technology known as Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) to capture CO₂ cost effectively. The produced CO₂ directly mixes with nitrogen in the air, making it difficult to separate, capture and store. Instead, the CLC overcomes this problem by preventing the CO₂ from mixing with the air.

The technology utilizes two reactors, a fuel reactor and an air reactor, for the process and uses metal oxide granules as oxygen carrier. The air reactor separates the oxygen from air and sends it the oxygen carrier. The oxidation process produces heat and also generates a stream of air that is devoid of oxygen. The oxygen-rich oxygen carrier is channeled to the fuel reactor to supply fuel with oxygen without nitrogen. When the fuel in the fuel reactor responds to the oxygen in a procedure known as reduction, it generates a flow of CO₂ and H₂O, which is condensed to capture pure CO₂. The oxygen poor oxygen carrier is transferred back to the air reactor to go over the process again. The heat generated in the reactor can be changed to electricity by utilizing turbines.

The DemoCLOCK utilizes a packed bed version of CLC where the oxygen carrier material is kept fixed in a reactor and remains exposed to air streams and fuel gas alternatively to assist in using a single reactor instead of two. This arrangement offers all the CO₂ capture benefits of normal CLC process. The new set up does not require the transfer of oxygen carrier material between two reactors, thus simplifying the process.

The packed bed CLC will also be utilized to change the gasified solid hydrocarbons into heated flow of CO₂ and oxygen-poor air for power generation, thus the new technology allows the possibility of utilizing fuels such as biomass, petcoke and coal.