The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has selected six projects to receive $17.6 million in federal funding under the Office of Fossil Energy’s Novel and Enabling Carbon Capture Transformational Technologies funding opportunity announcement.

This FOA will address the cost and operational challenges associated with current CO₂ capture technologies that are commercially available for industry, providing for additional development to these technologies at coal-fired power plants. Some of the challenges that will be addressed include a need to improve the reliability and operational flexibility; reduce high capital costs; and reduce the high-energy penalty associated with operating existing technology.

The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) will manage the selected projects, which will concentrate on transformational technologies that fall under two areas of interest. Area of Interest 1 focuses on developing transformational materials and processes for carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture that will enable step-change reductions in the capital and energy cost. Area of Interest 2 focuses on enabling technologies that facilitate improved performance of transformational CO₂ capture processes to reduce capital cost and energy penalties, and improve operational reliability and flexibility.

The following five projects were selected under Area of Interest 1:

Development and Bench-Scale Testing of a Novel Biphasic Solvent-Enabled Absorption Process for Post-Combustion Carbon Capture – The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois (Champaign, IL) will advance the development of the transformational biphasic CO₂ absorption process (BiCAP) technology. It will also validate its technical advantages by testing an integrated BiCAP system at a bench scale in an actual flue gas environment. BiCAP is a post-combustion CO₂ capture technology that has the energy efficiency advantage of a phase-transition process, while incurring low equipment and operating costs.

DOE: $2,999,941; Non-DOE: $750,052; Total: $3,749,993

Bench-Scale Development of a Transformational Graphene Oxide-Based Membrane Process for Post-Combustion CO₂ Capture – Institute of Gas Technology dba Gas Technology Institute (GTI) (Des Plaines, IL) will develop a transformational graphene oxide (GO)-based membrane process for installation in new, or retrofit into existing, pulverized coal (PC) or natural gas power plants. The process will be used for CO₂ capture with 95 percent CO₂ purity. The proposed transformational GO-based membrane process (designated as GO₂) integrates the GO-1 and GO-2 membranes and will offer a new opportunity to explore further reductions in the cost of CO₂ capture. The successful development of the proposed technology will enable cost-effective capture of CO₂ from flue gases.

DOE: $2,914,074; Non-DOE: $728,738; Total: $3,642,812

Development of Self-Assembly Isoporous Supports Enabling Transformational Membrane Performance for Cost-Effective Carbon Capture – Membrane Technology and Research, Inc. (MTR) (Newark, CA) will develop composite membranes with a transformational performance to reduce the cost of CO₂capture. The project consists of two parallel technology developments. The first development is to double membrane permeance by replacing conventional porous supports used to fabricate composite membranes with novel isoporous supports. The isoporous supports could overcome flow restrictions in conventional supports that hinder further improvement in carbon capture membranes. The second development is to double the mixed-gas selectivity of the MTR Polaris membrane by building on recent new materials work conducted at the University of New York at Buffalo.

DOE: $2,907,219; Non-DOE: $726,805; Total: $3,634,024

Mixed-Salt-Based Transformational Solvent Technology for CO₂ Capture – SRI International (Menlo Park, CA) will develop a water-lean, mixed-salt-based transformational solvent technology that will provide a step-change reduction in the CO₂ capture cost and energy penalty. The proposed new formulation should further improve the economics of CO₂ capture. The project team includes experts from SRI International (USA), SINTEF (Norway), Technical University of Denmark (Denmark), OLI Systems (USA), and Trimeric Corporation (USA), representing premier research organizations, academia, and industry.

DOE: $2,999,922; Non-DOE: $782,817; Total: $3,782,739

A Process with Decoupling Absorber Kinetics and Solvent Regeneration Through Membrane Dewatering and In-Column Heat Transfer – University of Kentucky Research Foundation (Lexington, KY) is developing an intensified process to significantly reduce the capital and operational costs associated with CO₂ capture. This process could be applied to most advanced solvents (aqueous or non-aqueous) and flue gas derived from either coal or natural gas combustion. The integrated process consists of a temperature-controlled absorber; a membrane-based dewatering unit; and a multiple-feed pressurized stripper. The successful development of the proposed technology will include continued utilization of abundant, low-cost coal to produce reliable electricity, while affordably meeting and managing environmental concerns. Major participants include the University of Kentucky Research Foundation, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Media and Process Technology, Smith Management Group, and Trimeric.

DOE: $2,998,293; Non-DOE: $750,642; Total: $3,748,935

The following project was selected under Area of Interest 2:

Flue Gas Aerosol Pre-Treatment Technologies to Minimize Post-Combustion CO₂ Capture Solvent Losses – Linde, LLC (Murray Hill, NJ) will research, develop, and validate enabling technologies for solvent aerosol emission mitigation of coal-based flue gas. The project will evaluate two flue gas aerosol mitigation technologies that have the potential to significantly reduce flue gas aerosol concentrations—which have been shown to contribute to amine losses in solvent-based post-combustion CO₂ capture systems. The results will be used to benchmark the performance and cost of these technologies against existing options for pretreatment of coal-based flue gas for aerosol mitigation. The impact of this reduction in aerosol concentrations could be leveraged across a variety of solvent-based post-combustion CO₂ capture systems to minimize solvent losses.

DOE: $2,787,742; Non-DOE: $696,936; Total: $3,484,678

To learn more about the programs within the Office of Fossil Energy, visit their website HERE. For more information about the National Energy Technology Laboratory visit their website HERE.