Department of Chemical Engineering

Unit Operation laboratory

ChE 565
 Introduction
Humans have increased the amount
of CO2 in the atmosphere by 40%
over the past 150 years, primarily
through the combustion of fossil
fuels
We also know that the 30 billion tonnes of
CO2 released by human activity must go
somewhere, and in fact atmospheric CO2
is only increasing by about 16 billion
tonnes per year (the rest is going into the
oceans). CO2 produced from burning
fossil fuels or burning forests also has
quite a different isotopic composition from
CO2 in the atmosphere
Figure 1: CO2 levels (parts per million)
over the past 10,000 years.
 Future Climate: [2]

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

(IPCC 2001) outlined what we should expect if
CO2
levels continue to rise unabated.
Increased maximum and minimum
temperatures
Heat stress on people, livestock and wildlife
Decreased cold-related morbidity
Benefits to some crops, and increased risk to
others
Increased intense precipitation
 Carbon storage and capture:
Is the process of capturing waste Carbon dioxide
(CO2) from large point sources, such as fossil fuel
power plant, transporting it to a storage site, and
depositing it where it will not enter the atmosphere,
normally an underground geological formation. The
aim is to prevent the release of large quantities of
CO2 into the atmosphere (from fossil fuel use in
power generation and other industries). It is a
potential means of mitigation the contribution of
fossil fuel emissions to global warming and ocean
acidification.
 Briefly stated, carbon capture and storage
(CCS) will help us to sustain many of the
benefits of
using hydrocarbons to generate energy as we
move into a carbon-constrained world
CCS lends itself most readily to applications
in which power is produced centrally (as in
the case of coal-powered electricity stations).
Geological Sequestration of Carbon Dioxide:

Two locations have been proposed for storing CO2: in the

oceans and in geological structures
beneath the Earths surface.
 The idea of carbon capture and storage is simple.
As we continue to rely on fossil fuels for our
energy, we mitigate the emission of CO2 by
capturingit at the point of combustion and
subsequently storing it in geological formations
(see Figure below).
The CO2 is separated from the flue gasemitted by
a power plant (capture) and subsequently
compressed and transported through pipelines.
At a nearby site, the CO2 is injected through a
deep well into a geological formation
(sequestration or storage).

 Storage of CO2 in Geological Formations:
Unless the power plant from which the CO2 is captured is located
at the sequestration site, there is a requirement to transport the CO2
over possibly large distances.
However, such transportation is already an established technology,
and the associated costs are
relatively low CO2 pressurized to above 8 MPa can be transported
in pipes. Currently in the US, more than 40 Mt of CO2 a year is
distributed through a network of over 2500 km of pipes.
CO2 can also be transported as a low-temperature liquid in ships or
by road or rail.
 The volumes of CO2 that need to be dealt with,
however, are large. Emissions of CO2 currently
run at over 30 billion tons a year, and sequestering
just a tenth of this would entail pumping about 75
million barrels of supercritical CO2 per day into
geological formations.
The Whole System:


Global experience with complete end-to-end CCS

systems is at present quite limited. When
compared to the kinds of CCS systems needed to
deliver significant CO2 reductionsa gigaton or
more per yearthe CCS systems that exist today
are very small, and many of the individual system
components can be viewed as first-generation
technologies. In particular, a strong focus on CO2
capture and MMV will help bring about successive
generations of more effective, economical and
reliable technologies.
 CO2 Capture:

Ancillary Systems:

CO2 Transport: