Fundamentals and applications of thermochemical conversion processes for emerging energy recovery technologies: novel materials, processing, and capture

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The proposed research program will offer a novel approach to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. One of the common means of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) in industry involves wet scrubbing with amine solvents. However, this causes a serious loss in thermodynamic efficiency and is unlikely to be cost-effective on a large scale. As a result, there has recently been considerable interest in dry processes for the capture of CO2. The unique aspect of this research is its emphasis on the integration of new materials for the capture of CO2 with gasification. The research program is based on three interrelated themes and their corresponding objectives. The main objective of the first theme - novel materials - is the fabrication of new solid materials that can replace limestone and its derivatives, which are the least costly and most abundant sorbents for the capture of CO2 at high temperatures. The major shortcoming of these sorbents is the rapid decrease of the CO2-capturing capacity over a large number of carbonation/calcination cycles. The engineered materials in this proposal will be tested under various operating conditions, leading to the main objective of the second theme - Integrated Gasification and CO2-Capture Processes. Various experiments will be conducted in a reactor to study the kinetics of the reactions ranging from carbonation/calcination to gasification. In order to replace calcium-based materials with engineered synthetic sorbents for commercialization, a detailed economic analysis is needed to determine the economic trade-off between the cost and the efficiency of sorbents, thereby ensuring a financially viable gasification and CO2-capture process. The knowledge obtained in the research of themes 1 and 2 will provide essential information for the main objective of theme 3, which is for the development of a comprehensive and flexible model capable of assessing the economics of the process. The proposed research will benefit Canada on several fronts: socio-economic, energy, and environment. The proposal, at its core, is designed to provide advanced training for 19 HQP at different levels.