Industrial Carbon Capture from an Existing Hot Briquetted Iron Manufacturing Facility Using the Cryocap™ FG Technology – The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Champaign, Illinois) plans to conduct a front-end engineering design (FEED) study to retrofit Voestalpine Texas LLC’s hot briquetted iron plant in Portland, Texas with Air Liquide's Cryocap^TM FG system. The Cryocap^TM technology combines pressure swing adsorption capabilities with cryogenic refrigeration technologies to achieve high carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture rates with high CO₂ purity rates. Cryocap^TM FG has been piloted at facilities in France and Denmark, and successful implementation of the technology in an industrial application will advance the technology further. The captured CO₂ emissions from the host site could readily be geologically stored at a location 10 miles from the project site.

DOE Funding: $3,998,328; Non-DOE Funding: $1,000,000; Total Value: $4,998,328

Engineering-Scale Testing of a Transformational Biphasic CO₂ Absorption Capture Technology at a Waste-to-Energy Facility – The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Champaign, Illinois) aims to advance their transformational biphasic CO₂ absorption process (BiCAP) by utilizing the technology to capture CO₂ from Covanta’s waste-to-energy facility located in Indianapolis, Indiana at 95% CO₂ capture efficiency and ≥95% CO₂ purity. This work will demonstrate BiCAP’s technical, economic, and environmental advantages through design, fabrication, testing, and assessment of a 2.5-tonne-per-day CO₂ engineering-scale, integrated capture system under real flue gas conditions at the plant. Testing results will help advance the technology toward commercial development and demonstrate its applicability to waste-to-energy facilities.

DOE Funding: $4,918,719; Non-DOE Funding: $1,262,286; Total Value: $6,181,005

CO₂ Capture at LG&E Cane Run NGCC Power Plant – A project team led by Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) (Palo Alto, California) plans to complete a FEED study for the University of Kentucky (UKy) solvent-independent low-cost CO₂ capture process retrofitted to the LG&E-KU Cane Run #7 (CR7) 700 MWe natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power generation unit. An optimized aqueous amine absorption capture process developed by UKy will be applied to capture approximately 1,700,000 tonnes/year of CO₂ at >95% capture rate. The CR7 unit, located in Louisville, Kentucky, is representative of power plants in the Midwest and Midsouth of the United States, where intermittent renewable power and geographical storage for CO₂ is limited. The FEED package will provide engineering and cost information relevant to retrofitting a carbon capture process on NGCC units.

DOE Funding: $5,842,517; Non-DOE Funding: $1,460,647; Total Value: $7,303,164

Transformational Nano-confined Ionic Liquid Membrane Combined with a Dehydration Membrane for ≥97% CO₂ Capture from NGCC Flue Gas – The Gas Technology Institute (Des Plaines, Illinois) project team intends to develop a membrane technology capable of capturing ≥97% CO₂ from NGCC flue gas and seek to demonstrate significant progress toward a 40% reduction in the cost of CO₂ capture versus a reference NGCC power plant for the same carbon capture efficiency. The project will fabricate a nano-confined ionic liquid membrane that demonstrates CO₂ permeance as high as 2,400 GPU with a CO₂/N₂ selectivity of 2,100, which is higher than state-of-the-art membranes in the Robeson plot (concerning materials with high selectivity and low permeability and those with low selectivity high permeability). The work aims to develop membrane material and a process to provide step reductions in CO₂ capture cost for NGCC power plants.

DOE Funding: $1,000,000; Non-DOE Funding: $250,000; Total Value: $1,250,000

Mitchell Cement Plant Carbon Capture FEED – Lehigh Hanson, Inc. (Irving, Texas) will conduct a FEED study retrofitting Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America, Inc. (MHIA’s) carbon capture technology at the state-of-the-art Mitchell Cement Plant in Mitchell, Indiana. The plant aims to incorporate features to minimize energy consumption and enable the utilization of alternative fuels and raw materials to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The proprietary Kansai Mitsubishi Carbon Dioxide Recovery Process (KM CDR Process™) and the KS-21™ amine solvent, supplied by MHIA, will serve as the basis of the FEED study. The project aims to capture approximately 2,000,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year, or 95% of the CO₂ emissions from the newly renovated cement facility, and ultimately sequester it in a sandstone or dolomite formation within the Illinois Basin.

DOE Funding: $3,669,223; Non-DOE Funding: $1,104,297; Total Value: $4,773,520

GEN2NAS Solvents for CO₂ Capture from NGCC Plants – RTI International (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina) plans to initiate laboratory testing of a novel non-aqueous solvent (NAS) technology in small capture plants with rotating packed bed absorbers. The research team will optimize the Generation 2 NAS (GEN2NAS) system with respect to amine concentration, viscosity, and diluent blends with the goal of demonstrating 97% or higher capture efficiency from simulated NGCC flue gas using a laboratory-scale absorption system.

DOE Funding: $1,000,000; Non-DOE Funding: $250,000; Total Value: $1,250,000

Carbon Capture Plant FEED Study for Cement Manufacturing – A project team led by RTI International (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina) will perform a FEED study for CO₂ capture from cement flue gas by using a NAS with 95% CO₂ capture efficiency. The project’s goal is to complete a FEED study of an integrated 500,000 tonnes-CO₂/year carbon capture system at CEMEX’s Balcones Cement Plant in New Braunfels, Texas to understand the capital costs and cost of CO₂ capture of the commercial-scale system. The Balcones plant produces approximately 2.7 Mt/year of cement with approximately 2.1 Mt/year of CO₂ emissions. RTI, the NAS CO₂ capture technology provider, will lead the CO₂ capture process design and manage the overall project activities.

DOE Funding: $3,680,000; Non-DOE Funding: $920,000; Total Value: $4,600,000

High Performance Solvent for NGCC Flue Gas CO₂ Capture – Susteon, Inc (Cary, North Carolina) is investigating a CO₂ capture solvent specifically designed for capturing >97% of the CO₂ from a NGCC power plant’s flue gas. The design approach for the novel solvent is based on meeting the CO₂ capture efficiency target by tailoring the physical and chemical properties while making significant progress towards 40% capture cost reduction when fully developed. If successful, this solvent will have reduced energy requirements for solvent regeneration and a high oxidative, thermal, and hydrothermal stability for reduced solvent loss and emissions, resulting in a reduced footprint and lower CAPEX due to high CO₂ capture working capacity and fast kinetics.

DOE Funding: $1,000,000; Non-DOE Funding: $275,000; Total Value: $1,275,000

Polk Power Station NGCC Carbon Capture FEED Study – Tampa Electric Company (Tampa, Florida) is leading a project team to conduct a FEED study for retrofitting ION Clean Energy Inc.’s post-combustion CO₂ capture technology at Polk Power Station—an existing 1,190-MW NGCC power station located in Mulberry, Florida. The Polk site has many features that make it an ideal candidate for applying post-combustion carbon capture, including favorable geology for onsite large-scale CO₂ storage. The project will be capable of capturing nearly 3.7 million metric tonnes of CO₂ per year and will utilize ION’s transformational solvent (ICE-31), which has been developed and demonstrated by ION to achieve a minimum of 95% CO₂ capture with exceptional long-term stability in NGCC environments. This FEED study will demonstrate how a large and critical unit can be equipped with carbon capture and storage to operate within and support a decarbonized electric grid in the future.

DOE Funding: $5,588,173; Non-DOE Funding: $1,397,044; Total Value: $6,985,217

Enhancement of Carbon Capture Reactor Performance – The University of Kentucky Research Foundation (Lexington, Kentucky) intends to research the chemical mechanisms of post-combustion solvent-based absorption technologies through the design, synthesis, and testing of materials with targeted functionality. The work will be combined with research of advanced additive manufacturing techniques that will aid in the development of enhanced CO₂ capture reactors. The project aims to address the challenges that are still present in post-combustion CO₂ capture systems and advance the deployment of carbon capture technologies designed for use in NGCC power plants. The overall objective of this research is to develop and test novel carbon capture materials and reactor components that contribute to increased CO₂mass transfer through an increased turbulent gas-liquid interface and improved solvent wetting in the absorber.

DOE Funding: $997,698; Non-DOE Funding: $250,907; Total Value: $1,248,605