SBIR Phase I: Optimizing Composition of Novel Molten Alkali Metal Borates for Carbon Dioxide Capture

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛/商业影响是开发熔盐基碳捕获系统，该系统可应用于许多不同的排放源，并易于集成到现有站点。这项技术可以应用于工业供热、水泥、钢铁和氢气生产等难以减排的行业，也可以应用于煤炭、石油和天然气可能在未来几十年仍是主要燃料的难以减排的地区。该技术还可以支持从生物源中去除二氧化碳。纸浆和造纸、废物转化为能源和生物能源等部门可以实现净负排放。熔融硼酸盐碳捕集技术可用于从源头捕集二氧化碳，使重工业脱碳。这些行业主导着全球二氧化碳排放，每年排放超过230亿吨，按每吨二氧化碳50美元计算，市场价值超过1万亿美元。这种熔融硼酸盐碳捕获技术的进步有可能通过解决与碳捕获中高温分离相关的效率损失来降低二氧化碳捕获的成本。这个SBIR一期项目的智力价值在于发现了一种熔融硼酸盐成分，可以降低成本，增加未来碳捕获系统的设计灵活性。添加其他金属和或改变混合比例预计会导致使用这些盐的系统的熔点和最终工作温度降低。本研究旨在通过合成和测试一系列与参比相比碱金属和混合比含量有所改变的盐成分来探测这一未开发的相空间。降低硼酸盐熔点有可能缓解冻结问题，降低材料温度，最终降低成本，并增加广泛采用这种新型碳捕获技术的潜力。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader/commercial impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is the development of a molten salt-based carbon capture system that can be applied to a number of different emission sources with easy integration into the existing site. The technology can be applied to hard-to-abate industries such as industrial heat, cement, steel, and hydrogen production, or in hard-to-abate geographies where coal, oil, and natural gas are likely to remain prevalent fuels for decades. The technology can also support carbon dioxide removal from biogenic sources. Net-negative emissions can be achieved in sectors such as pulp and paper, waste-to-energy, and bioenergy. The molten borate carbon capture technology can be used to decarbonize heavy industry by capturing carbon dioxide at the source. These industries dominate global carbon dioxide emissions emitting over 23 billion tons per year, a greater than $1 trillion market at $50 per ton of carbon dioxide. The advancement of this molten borate carbon capture technology could have the potential to decrease the costs of carbon dioxide capture by solving the efficiency penalty associated with high temperature separations in carbon capture. The intellectual merit of this SBIR Phase I project resides in the discovery of a molten borate composition that can reduce the cost and increase the design flexibility of future carbon capture systems. The addition of other metals and or changes to the mixing ratio are expected to lead to reductions in melting point and the ultimate working temperature of a system where these salts are employed. This research aims to probe this unexplored phase space by synthesizing and testing an array of salt compositions that have modified alkali metal and mixing ratio content compared to the reference. Reductions in molten borate melting point have the potential to mitigate freezing concerns and reduce upper material temperatures, ultimately decreasing the cost, and increasing the potential for widespread adoption of this novel carbon capture technology.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.