CO2 capture technology by membranes, sorbents and solvents

2020-10-13; ECCSEL ECCSELERATE webinar

Thijs Peters, SINTEF Industry, Norway

Contents

• SINTEF introduction

• CO2 capture with membrane technology• Short introduction and state-of-the-art

• Relevant research infrastructure available at SINTEF

• Sorbents for CO2 capture processes - Richard Blom

• Solvents for CO2 capture applications - Karl Anders Hoff

This is SINTEF

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2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Membranes in energy systems with CO2 capture

Thijs Peters, SINTEF Industry, Norway

Introduction

• Post-combustion membrane systems• Polymeric CO2-selective membranes

• Pre-combustion membrane systems• Polymeric H2 or CO2-selective membranes

• Pd-based H2-selective membranes

• Ceramic proton-conducting membranes

• Membranes relevant for oxy-fuel• Polymeric O2-selective membranes

• Ceramic oxygen-conducting membranes

CO2/CH4 separation

Polymeric membrane systems

• Post-combustion membrane systems• Removal of CO2 from flue gas

• ~4% CO2 (gas), ~13% CO2 (coal), ~14-33% CO2 (cement)

• Single membrane or in a multi-stage operation• Integrated techno-economic assessment to guide material development

• Innovative process designs required to prevent large energy usages

• SINTEF activities• Membrane development and performance evaluation

• Integrated techno-economic assessment

Membranes are compact and simple

Merkel and Freeman, MTR, 2017

Polymer membrane research facility

12

Real flue gas membrane test rig

Compact hollow fibre spinning machine

Pilot scale membrane test rig

High pressure gas membrane test rig

Performance evaluation - special gas laboratory

• Membrane testing in presence of H2S/SO2/NH3• Pressure up to 150 bar, temperature up to 300 °C

• Mass flow and composition• 5 NL/min feed controllers

• Pre-mixed feed gases (high-pressure, incl. H2S/SO2/NH3)

• Retentate/permeate analysis• Mass flow meter and composition by Agilent 490 micro-GC

• Large focus on HSE• All equipment in ventilated hoods installed in a dedicated ''sulphur'' laboratory

• Detectors for CO/H2/H2S (fixed and portable) connected to magnetic valves13 Ventilation > 0.7 m3 / s

Example of investigations

• Polymeric CO2-selective membranes• Durability testing in the presence of SO2

• Period of 1500 hours under varying SO2 levels up to 400 ppm at atmospheric pressure at 25 °C

• Membranes for natural gas sweetening• CO2/CH4 separation of Zr-MOFs based mixed

matrix membranes

• Effect of 5% H2S in CO2/CH4 at 20 bar and 50 °C

14

5% H2S, 20 bar

Ceramic membrane systems

• Ceramic membranes for air separation, relevant for• Oxygen for oxy-combustion

• Syngas production

• Proton-conducting membranes – cooperation with CoorsTek Membrane Science AS, relevant for• H2-production from natural gas med CCS

• Natural gas to aromatics and H2

• Established pilot production for membrane

Praxair, PIOGA Conference, 2016

Ceramic oxygen-conducting membranes

• O2 production• State-of-the-art: decades of research by Air Products

(Ceramatec) and Praxair

• Pure O2 production by OTM route appears not to be competitive to cryogenic distillation

• Most energy efficient way to use OTMs is by full integration with the boiler, which is more challenging

• Syngas production• Driving force less of a problem; more about stability

• Achieved commercial ceramic performance targets

• Demonstrated at single and multi-panel levels

• On-Track with supply chain and cost reductionPraxair, PIOGA Technical Conference, 2016.

Protonic Membrane Reformer (PMR)

• SMR with in-situ electrochemical H2 separation and compression• Net endothermic chemical reaction is balanced with the heat evolved from the galvanic operation of the cell

(a) (b)

Malerød-Fjeld, H., Clark, D., Yuste-Tirados, I., …. Vestre, P.K. Norby, T., Haugsrud, R., Serra, J.M., Kjølseth, C., Nature Energy 2(12), 923 (2017

Unique infrastructure

• Clean room facilities for manufacturing of membranes• Extrusion, coating techniques, and

controlled sintering of ceramic membranes

• Thin film deposition with PVD techniques

• Special gas laboratory• Characterisation of gas permeability,

selectivity, kinetics, corrosion and stability can be performed under realistic conditions

• Gas mixtures, including poisonous gases like H2S, SO2 and NH3

Polyteknik Flextura cluster tool installed in SINTEF laboratory - ECCSEL

Metallic membranes for H2 separation

• Metallic material is solely permeable for H2• Pd-alloy or amorphous alloys of Ni / V and early

transition metals (ETMs)

• H2 produced with high purity: >99%

• Application temperature 300 - 550 °C

Pd-alloy membranes – scientific challenges

• Life-time issues• Selectivity decrease observed during long-term

operation of Pd-based membranes

• Increase operating temperature

• Stability against contaminants

• Module design• Gas phase limitations

• Upscaling and reproducibility of manufacturing• Preparation of large membrane areas

Pure Pd membrane after >6h exposure to 1000 ppm H2S at 350 °C [O’Brien, 2010]

Radial H2 distribution in a multitube membrane module [Castro-Dominguez, 2017]

Peters, T.A., et al., RSC Publishing, 2017.

Pd-based H2-selective membranes

• Activities• Alloy investigation

• Performance evaluation

• Testing• Up to 30 bars, 10 NL/min

• Separate studies of effect of H2S and NH3 Skid designed by

Reinertsen New Energy

Membranes produced at SINTEF

Module integration by Reinertsen in Equinors

methanol synthesis plant in Tjeldbergodden

Conclusions

• SINTEF has large activities on membrane processes in gas separation, production and use

• Expertise and required equipment for the preparation / characterisation of mainly all types of membranes relevant for CCS

• Testing of membranes at realistic operating conditions

• Inquiries• Thijs Peters, Senior Scientist, SINTEF Industry

Thijs.Peters@sintef.no, +47 982 439 41

Acknowledgements