Carbon capture, utilization, and storage – one step closer to decarbonization

Technologies for decarbonization include carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), which are being researched extensively. CCUS is expected to play a key role in reaching net-zero CO₂ emissions by 2050. Professor Tom Woo recently initiated a 4-year multidisciplinary, academic/industry collaborative project funded at more than $3M called ACO₂RDS (Adsorptive CO₂ Removal from Dilute Sources) to develop industrial scale processes to concentrate CO₂ from flue-gas and other dilute gas streams to mitigate airborne emission. The project involves scientists at TotalEnergies, a French energy company, and Prof. Arvind Rajendran’s process engineering research group at the University of Alberta. The uOttawa team will provide expertise in materials design and simulation, the uAlberta team will performed detailed process simulations, while TotalEnergies researchers will provide expertise in machine learning and materials synthesis. Approximately $850K of the funding comes from the Mitacs Accelerate program, which will fund 4 postdoctoral fellows and 2 PhD students, as well as provide funding for internships at TotalEnergies in France and Houston.

While prior efforts have focused largely on capture of CO₂ from concentrated sources such as coal-fired power plants and cement manufacturing plants, applying these techniques to dilute sources of CO₂ such as processes involving natural gas combustion (NGC) and capturing CO₂ directly from the air (called direct air capture or DAC) comes with more technological challenges. The difficulties primarily relate to the increased energy costs of filtering out the CO₂, the more dilute it is. This project will discover novel materials called metal-organic frameworks or MOFs to lower the cost of CO₂ capture based on detailed simulations of the industrial-scale processes. The novelty of this project is that the researchers will develop innovative MOFs and accompanying processes to capture CO₂ from dilute sources. TotalEnergies has identified CCUS via NGC and DAC as key technologies to facilitate their transition to becoming a carbon-neutral energy provider.

This project is important not only to Canadians but also to the global community – a 2018 analysis by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) determined that most pathways for meeting the ambitious climate targets set by the Paris Agreement will rely to some extent on carbon removal measures such as DAC. As such, it is clear there is an urgent need for this technology to aid in the mitigation of the disastrous effects of climate change and improve the quality of life within our built environment.