High Capacity, Stable, Low Volatility Water-Lean Solvents for CO2 Capture

ION Engineering proposes a program that will result in an advanced transformational and environmentally benign solvent based on a completely new class of molecules as the next generation of ION’s CO2 capture technology through a collaboration with the University of Alabama. Leveraging its development program through SBIR phases I, II and III, ION will validate the technology at >10 MWe scale within 4 years (2022), which planning is based on ION’s vast experience of its recent solvent development efforts. The proposed Phase I project will take 9 months and the activities include solvent syntheses up to 1 gallon each, a suite of characterizations that determine physico-chemical properties and initial thermal and oxidative properties. These results will be assessed against solvent properties of DOE BBS Case 12 to estimate the impact on a capture plant for a 550 MWe power plant using flue gas of a coal-fueled power plant. There are several aspects of the new solvent that will contribute to reducing the cost of capture toward the DOE goal of $30 per tonne CO2 (tCO2); e.g., the solvent has a low water content (10-30 wt%), enhanced carrying capacity, lower regeneration energy through increased stripper pressure (<2.2 GJ/tCO2), fast kinetics, low corrosivity, lower emissions through increased vapor pressure and much lower solvent make-up (<95% than current ION solvent) due to improved physico-chemical properties; all of which contribute to building a smaller, more efficient plant for carbon capture. Moreover, the new solvent can be produced through a simple two-step process from commodity chemicals with a 97% conversion rate keeping the solvent price low. In Phases II and III ION plans to upscale from lab to bench, pilot-scale and large pilot-scale, thereby validating synthesis procedures, emissions, corrosion, solvent make-up rates and its simulated process design in OGT’s ProTreat®, which are ultimately the basis for commercial plant design and robust TEAs.