Impact of CO2 impurity on compression, liquefaction & transportation

Project leader

Dr Ben Wetenhall

Dates

2013 to 2015

Project staff

Academic staff

• University of Strathclyde
• Dr Julia Race
• University of Edinburgh
• Dr Hannah Chalmers
• Dr Maria-Chiara Ferrari
• Dr Jia Li
• School of Engineering
• Dr Simon Benson

Researchers

• School of Engineering
• Dr Hamed Agnajani

Sponsors

International Energy Agency

Description

Different carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture technologies produce different concentrations and combinations of impurities in captured CO₂. For example, oxyfuel combustion capture technology can produce CO₂ containing the highest amount of impurities.

Impurities in captured CO₂ influence the physical properties. In turn, this will affect the energy required for CO₂ compression. At high pressure, impurities like sulphur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) form sulphuric and nitric acid in the presence of water. This will corrode the CO2 compression equipment.

The previous study by IEAGHG on CO₂ compression did not evaluate the effect of impurities. The levels of impurities were very low. Thus, we need to explore the impact of CO₂ impurities on the power consumption and performance of CO₂ compression and liquefaction processes.

We will review CO₂ impurities from different CO₂ capture methods. This will allow us to develop scenarios of levels of impurities which may be present.

We will evaluate these scenarios for CO₂ physical properties.

We will investigate the effects of CO₂ impurities on CO₂ compression and liquefaction.

We will identify the effects of impurities on CO₂ transportation (pipeline and ship) operational issues. These include optimum CO₂ pressure and temperature.

We will evaluate the effects of impurities on CO₂ pipeline safety issues such as fracture, rupture and required safeguards.