REWAS 2022: Decarbonizing the Materials Industry: Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage
Sponsored by: TMS Extraction and Processing Division, TMS: Recycling and Environmental Technologies Committee, TMS: Energy Committee, TMS: Process Technology and Modeling Committee, TMS: Aluminum Committee
Program Organizers: Camille Fleuriault, Eramet Norway; Christina Meskers, SINTEF; Mertol Gokelma, Izmir Institute of Technology; Elsa Olivetti, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Jesse White, Kanthal AB; Chukwunwike Iloeje, Argonne National Laboratory; Neale Neelameggham, IND LLC; Kaka Ma, Colorado State University
Wednesday 2:00 PM
March 2, 2022
Room: 212A
Location: Anaheim Convention Center
Session Chair: Camille Fleuriault, Eramet Norway
2:00 PM Introductory Comments
2:05 PM Invited
The Carbon Age: Reimaging the Lifecycle of Fuels and Materials: Jonah Erlebacher1; Shashank Lakshman1; Jonathan Horlyck1; Gina Greenidge1; 1Johns Hopkins University
Currently, most fuels are burned, creating useful heat but also generating CO2. An alternative approach starts with carbon-containing fuels, decomposing them into hydrogen and solid carbon. The high temperature and thermal input rates required to decarbonize heavy industry are provided by hydrogen, assuming it is made at large enough scale. A variety of high-throughput methods to decompose natural gas (e.g., pyrolysis) are under development, and we will discuss our own novel approach to this problem. Our method, like virtually all new methods to make hydrogen at scale, generates lots of carbon powder. We need to transform this carbon into forms useful to industries that operate on large scales - construction and/or agriculture – so that the carbon is permanently and usefully sequestered. This is why as we design our hydrogen production process we’ve included modularity, with units for carbon upgrading, and we will discuss our advances in this endeavor.
2:35 PM
Field Demonstration of the Reversa Mineral Carbonation Process Using Coal and Natural Gas Flue Gas Streams: Dale Prentice1; Iman Mehdipour2; Gabriel Falzone3; Stephen Raab2; Dante Simonetti1; Gaurav Sant1; 1University of California; 2CarbonBuilt; 3RCAM Technologies
Concrete, a mixture composed of a cementation agent, mineral aggregates, and water has the potential to serve as a gigaton-scale sink for carbon dioxide (CO2). The CarbonBuilt’s Reversa process, developed at UCLA exploits simple acid-base chemistry to mineralize CO2-dilute flue gas emissions into mineral carbonate-based cementation agents at ambient pressure, at flue gas temperatures, and without a need for carbon capture. The Reversa technology was upscaled and demonstrated using a modularized pilot-plant at two national carbon capture test centers using coal- (~12 vol. % CO2) and natural gas (~4 vol. % CO2) flue gas streams. The field demonstration led to the production of over 15,000 concrete blocks and achieved: (1) a CO2 utilization efficiency in excess of 75%, (2) greater than 250 kg of CO2 utilization per 13 tonnes of concrete (i.e. one production run), and (3) the blocks produced were confirmed to be compliant with all relevant industry specifications.
2:55 PM
Pilot Scale Test of Flue Gas Recirculation for the Silicon Process: Vegar Andersen1; Ingeborg Solheim2; Heiko Gaertner2; Bendik Sægrov-Sorte2; Kristian Einarsrud1; Gabriella Tranell1; 1NTNU; 2Sintef
Flue gas recirculation (FGR) has been tested in a pilot scale silicon production process. FGR for the silicon process has a potential of increasing CO2 concentration in the off gas, which will be beneficial for future carbon capture, and reducing NOx emissions. An existing 400 kVA pilot furnace setup was modified to be able to recirculate flue gas and equipped with gas analysis equipment to analyze both the flue gas and the mixed combustion gas entering the furnace. Over a running period of 80 hours, including 32 hours of startup, twelve different combinations of FGR ratios and flow rates was tested using typical industrial raw materials. Increased CO2 flue gas concentrations was successfully demonstrated with concentrations over 20 vol % CO2 in the flue gas. Emissions of NOx was shown to be reduced when isolating stable comparable periods within each tapping cycle.
3:15 PM Break
3:35 PM
Carbon Footprint Reduction Opportunities in the Manganese Alloys Industry: Camille Fleuriault1; Kåre Bjarte Bjelland1; 1Eramet Norway
Production of manganese alloys is an energy intensive process associated with high carbon consumption. In the wake of the Paris agreement, ferromanganese producers have implemented new strategies to minimize the environmental footprint of smelting and refining activities. At Eramet Norway, process decarbonization is well underway with the goal to reduce CO2 emissions by 43% within 2030. Initiatives cover the full FeMn process range, starting from the assessment of carbon neutral reagents and pre-processing of the manganese ore to downstream reuse of furnace offgas as energy vector. In collaboration with a rich grid of academic and industrial partners, Eramet Norway is especially investigating solutions for carbon capture and storage from ferromanganese furnace gases. Technical challenges are associated with the presence of deleterious components in the flue gas as well as process discontinuities, while economic feasibility is relying on maximizing upscale efficiencies, developing downstream networks and securing governmental support.
3:55 PM
Effect of Moisture and High Temperature to Separation Properties of Mixed Matrix Membranes: Dragutin Nedeljkovic1; 1American University of the Middle East
Recently, huge emissions of carbon dioxide have emerged as a major problem in different fields of engineering. Mixed matrix membranes are materials with huge potential for application in the field of carbon-dioxide removal from the flue gases. Preliminary experiments have shown that dense composite membrane with polyethyleneoxide (PEO) as a matrix and zeolite powder as a dispersed phase with appropriate additive that serves as a homogenizer can be used. This type of membranes has shown good permeability of carbon-dioxide and relatively low permeability for other gases (hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen). The aim of this work is to test potential degradation of permeation properties and mechanical consistency of the membrane under repeated cycles of heating and cooling in presence of moisture. The experiments were performed at five different temperatures below melting or degradation point of polymers with three different partial pressures of water in combination with various gases.
4:15 PM Invited
CO2 as Raw Material for Chemical and Fuel Productions through Electrocatalysis: Di-Jia Liu1; 1Argonne National Laboratory
CO2 produced from the fossil fuel processes in materials industry has contributed to total GHG emission and deleterious impact to global environmental and ecological systems. New carbon capture, sequestration and conversion technologies are widely pursued as potential solutions to mitigate the CO2 emission and accumulation. The electrochemical reduction reaction of CO2 (CO2RR) to fuels and chemicals using renewable electricity offers an attractive “carbon-neutral” or even “carbon-negative” mitigation strategy. CO2 is an inexpensive carbon source and can be used as a feedstock for producing value-added chemicals. Key focuses in the CO2RR research include improving energy efficiency, increasing the process selectivity, and lowering the system operating cost. In this presentation, I will review some recent progresses, including ours, in developing highly efficient electrocatalysts and device of producing chemicals and fuels using CO2 as raw material, as well as the challenges and future direction of the research in this field.