Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NanoMEMC2 (NanoMaterials Enhanced Membranes for Carbon Capture)

Teaser

Within the current environmental concerns about global warming, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is seen as a necessary medium term technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere while waiting for a complete transition towards a more sustainable energy...

Summary

Within the current environmental concerns about global warming, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is seen as a necessary medium term technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere while waiting for a complete transition towards a more sustainable energy system.
Currently, the main limit to the application of CCS technologies is its high cost of implementation; therefore, strong research efforts are needed to optimize current capture processes and make CCS an economically viable solution for the decarbonisation of the industrial sector.
The NANOMEMC2 project aims at solving such limitations through the development of innovative materials, membranes and processes for CO2 capture, able to achieve a substantial reduction in the energy penalty related to the decrease of CO2 emissions. In particular project’s objectives are (Fig.1):
- Development of new CO2 selective membranes with high flux and selectivity
- Development of new H2 selective membranes with high flux and selectivity
- Development of highly integrated Capture solutions based on innovative process schemes and newly developed membrane technologies
NANOMEMC2 applies new membranes to both Pre- and Post-combustion capture schemes in order to increase the flexibility of proposed solutions thus maximizing the chance of success of the resulting technologies.
NANOMEMC2 also addresses the development of new, high efficiency capture processes; selected through techno-economic and environmental analysis of possible process schemes tailored for a competitive implementation of membrane based capture steps in the industrial plants of interest.
NANOMEMC2 intends to validate the above targets in relevant industrial environments to build a solid business case for future developments towards industrial deployment of membrane based carbon capture solutions.
Finally NANOMEMC2 seeks strong collaboration with the Republic of Korea in the field of CCS to exploit complementary expertise and synergies in the development of new capture solutions.

Work performed

NANOMEMC2 is structured in 3 phases related to Material Development, Process Integration and Technology Validation (Fig.2).
Materials Development focuses on the production of graphene or nanocellulose based hybrid membranes to attain the first two scientific objectives of the project. It moves through the production of three different generations of materials with increased separation efficiency and permeance.
To this purpose, the NANOMEMC2 Consortium developed more than fifty 1st generation materials by coupling state of the art nanofillers and commercial or pseudo commercial polymers, to identify and select the best candidates for subsequent activities. All samples were subjected to a basic structural characterization and to pure and mixed gas permeation tests to determine their potential capture performances.
2nd generation materials were also produced starting from the modification of Graphene/Graphene oxide and Nanocellulose to be used as nanofillers in the most promising polymers considered for first generation samples. Currently, these materials are being used for the production of innovative CO2 and H2 selective membranes, which will be tested in the subsequent phases of project.
In addition, novel modelling approaches were developed within the project able to guide the material design by focusing on the development of micro- and macro-scopic modelling tools for the description of facilitated transport membranes (Fig.3).
The Process Integration phase aims at reaching the 3rd scientific objective of NANOMEMC2 which is the competitive integration of membranes into different industrial processes. To that aim, existing industrial processes, known for contributing to climate change, were investigated and analysed to become a meaningful benchmark for the quantification the novel NANOMEMC2 processes benefits. Four of such Industrial Production Scenarios were selected and analysed considering both pre and post combustion solutions:
• Power generation from natural gas
• Power generation by coal gasification
• Clinker production (Cement)
• Hydrogen production via steam methane reforming
During the first half of the project, in particular both “Business As Usual” case, without any carbon capture, and “Base Case” applying state-of-the-art CCS technologies were evaluated for benchmarking purposes.
The Technology Validation phase includes all the activities needed to bring the NANOMEMC2 membrane technology to TRL 5 and to the validation in an industrially relevant environment. So far, activities of this phase have focused on the development of membrane modules and on the set up of industrial, pilot or pre-pilot scale test rig for the final testing of NANOMEMC2 membranes.
Module development focused mainly on the scale up of the membrane production process by optimizing the procedures to obtain a continuous, thin, selective layer on top of the considered porous supports (Fig.4).
The main characteristics of the industrial testing rig were also determined to allow the construction of the various systems at the partner’s premises, a process that is now close to completion.
Based on these preliminary results the NANOMEMC2 Consortium decided to start the production of the first membrane module by considering a 1st generation materials produced by NTNU. This activity will facilitate the execution of the first industrial tests to be performed before months 30, in line with the initial project plan.
Following the successful technical development, several exploitation and dissemination activities were also performed: two exploitation workshops were organized and a stakeholder analysis was carried out as a basis for the project’s exploitation strategy. Other dissemination activities included the production of several communication and dissemination materials, the organization of a dissemination workshop, the project presentation at international conferences and events, and the development of the project website.

Final results

NANOMEMC2 aims at a substantial decrease of the costs associated to carbon capture, by developing innovative membranes materials with high flux and selectivity and innovative processes able to maximize the membrane impact on the capture performance in industrial applications.
Naturally, a quantification of the impact of NANOMEMC2 results on CCS costs and on its deployment in the industrial and energy sectors is challenging today considering that the project is still in progress, however during its first 18 months, NANOMEMC2 obtained a broad range of promising results.
Most of the materials investigated in this period, indeed showed properties in line or above the current permeability/selectivity trade off limit for CO2 separation membranes, and new modelling tools were applied for the first time to the problem of facilitated transport membranes.
These initial results align well with the planned project outcomes related to the development of:
• New functionalized nanofillers
• Innovative high performance CO2 or H2 selective Hybrid Membranes
• New modelling tools for the description of gas transport facilitated transport membranes.
• Innovative membrane based capture processes
• Optimized integration schemes for membrane based capture implementation in different industrial processes.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.nanomemc2.eu/.