Imperial College London
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Professor Niall Mac Dowell FIChemE FRSC

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Centre for Environmental Policy

Professor of Future Energy Systems
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 9298niall Website

 
 
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Location

 

16 Prince's GardensSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Mac:2017:10.1039/C7SE00404D,
author = {Mac, Dowell N and Hallett, J and Mota, Martinez M},
doi = {10.1039/C7SE00404D},
journal = {Sustainable Energy & Fuels},
pages = {2078--2090},
title = {Solvent selection and design for CO2 capture - how we might have been missing the point},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C7SE00404D},
volume = {1},
year = {2017}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a vital technology for the cost-effective mitigation of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. However, a key obstacle to its deployment on a large scale remains its cost – both capital and operating costs. In this context, the development of improved sorbents is a key research priority. Consequently, there is a vast global effort to develop new materials for this purpose, with literally thousands of new materials having been proposed since the beginning of the millennium. One common element of these contributions is that they focus on the equilibrium capacity of the material to absorb CO2 and rarely, if ever, other key factors such as transport properties. To date, the majority of this effort has cost significant amounts of time and resources and has almost exclusively focused on developing sorbents with increased CO2 capacity and/or reduced heat of regeneration. Given that sorbent regeneration largely dictates operational cost, this would, on the surface, appear rational. However, it is vital to recall that the cost structure of $ per MWh of electricity generated is composed of contributions from both capital and operational costs. Consequently, this single-minded focus on equilibrium CO2 capacity and heat of regeneration excludes the contribution of transport and kinetic properties which determine the equipment size and thus the capital cost. Therefore, in order to develop sorbents which will result in a non-negligible cost reduction, it is essential to move beyond equilibrium-based metrics of sorbent performance. In this paper, we present a new methodological approach for sorbent screening which explicitly includes rate-based phenomena. Our approach uses both monetised and non-monetised performance indicators. Our results suggest that whilst equilibrium CO2 capacity is a key determinant of process performance, transport properties (e.g., viscosity) and other thermophysical properties (e.g., heat capacity) have a significant effect
AU  - Mac,Dowell N
AU  - Hallett,J
AU  - Mota,Martinez M
DO  - 10.1039/C7SE00404D
EP  - 2090
PY  - 2017///
SN  - 2398-4902
SP  - 2078
TI  - Solvent selection and design for CO2 capture - how we might have been missing the point
T2  - Sustainable Energy & Fuels
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C7SE00404D
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/50470
VL  - 1
ER  -
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