Encapsulated Solvents for Post-Combustion Carbon Capture

The separation of carbon dioxide from flue gases is typically the most expensive stage of a carbon capture and storage operation, and while many solvents and adsorbents could be used for this separation, at present no material is without significant disadvantages..

ENCAPSULATED SOLVENTS FOR POST-COMBUSTION
CARBON CAPTURE
Thomas Moore, Kathryn Mumford, Geoff Stevens, Paul Webley


The separation of carbon dioxide from flue gases is typically the most expensive stage of a carbon capture and storage operation, and while many solvents and adsorbents could be used for this separation, at present no material is without significant disadvantages. This project aims to develop a new hybrid material, microencapsulated solvents (MECS), in which solvents are encapsulated in small (100-500 micron) polymer shells which are highly permeable to CO2. Microencapsulation may allow corrosive, viscous or volatile solvents to be used in CCS operations. Further, the very high surface area of these particles enhances the kinetics of absorption, allowing the use of solvents with low regeneration energies, whose kinetics would otherwise be prohibitively slow. This project will investigate the industrial application of MECS for post-combustion capture of CO2. Through a combination of large-scale process modelling, small-scale transport phenomena analysis and experimental measurements we hope to assess their industrial viability, analyse different process designs, and compare them with existing capture technologies.