Norway’s national carbon capture and storage research funding program CLIMIT is contributing $3 million to help fund the development of a new capture capture technology that could prove less costly and easier to deploy at industrial facilities. The Carbon Capture and Conversion Institute (CCCI), based in Calgary, will do the engineering design work to scale up the process if initial testing is successful.
SINTEF, a research organization in Norway, has developed a solvent that is more efficient at absorbing CO2 emissions than others, can operate at lower temperatures and therefore uses less energy. It’s working with Westec Environmental Solutions (WES), an US-based company which has developed a contactor or the unit where the solvent captures the CO2 emissions that is much smaller than traditional contactors.
Goran Vlajnic, executive director at CCCI, notes that positive results from testing could prove to be significant in the development of a low-cost, streamlined carbon capture system.
“This will make the overall operation significantly less capital and energy intensive,” he says, adding that “if successful, the new process could play a significant role in reducing industrial emissions.”
The contactor and solvent will be brought together for testing and validation in Trondheim, Norway next year. Bill Hargrove, CEO at WES notes that precipitating solvents have the potential to reduce carbon capture costs but the process integration can be tricky. By combining the WES contactor and the SINTEF solvent, the goal is to “demonstrate a viable, cost-efficient solution to CO2 capture.”
If the results are positive, CCCI experts will engineer and design a system to scale up the process. In the third stage of development, CCCI will design a modular unit that can be tested at the Institute’s technology development centre or in an industrial setting.
CCCI is a business division of CMC Research Institutes.