Mission Innovation is a worldwide initiative to accelerate
the implementation of clean energy, announced during the
COP21 in Paris on November 30, 2015.
Several challenges
were selected, one of those is the implementation of carbon
capture, to enable near-zero CO2 emissions from power
plants and carbon intensive industries. A workshop has
been held in Houston, Texas on September 25-29, 2017
which aims on early stage breakthrough CCUS technologies.
The event was conceived as composed of a number of
panels where experts have been invited to discuss the
fundamentals of the worldwide research in the field
of carbon capture, use and storage within the coming years.
One of the panel focused on sorbents and looping systems,
and was attended by Paul Fennell, Tom Hills and Stefano
Stendardo - members of the ASCENT consortium. In
particular, Fennell gave a presentation showing the current
state of the art of Calcium Looping (CaL), and included the
processes which are being thoroughly investigated in the
ASCENT project. The ASCENT project along with SCARLET
project were presented as two EU initiatives on the CaL
cycle at different scales, with the former more related to
proof of concept scale and the latter on pilot scale. Different
research actions have been prioritised during the discussion
in the panel by the members of the ASCENT consortium
with the other panelists: Hills have highlighted the
importance of the implementation of CCUS technologies
for the decarbonisation of industry whereas Stendardo has
suggested to focus the future efforts in the development
of new flexible CCUS processes for the production of
decarbonised power.
ASCENT consortium is focusing on the experimental
tests of novel processes at the proof of concept scale.
The activities are complemented with modeling activities
to give insight into the dynamics and performances of
the lab-scale reactors. The experimental and modeling
activities are related to the CaCu, CSHIFT and SER cycles.
With regards to the CaCu cycle, the activities are related to
the: (i) modification of the experimental set up to reduce
heat losses and to improve the initial temperature profi les,
(ii) study of the reduction/calcination stage with methane
and mixtures of methane/hydrogen for the subsequent
validation of the reactor model and (iii) proof of concept of
the whole process.
The SER process has been tested in batch Fluidized Bed
reactor for hydrogen production by sorption-enhanced
reforming of methane at different fluidization velocities
for the new sorbent materials developed. The materials
performance was satisfactory for operation in fluidized bed
environment and operating conditions have been validated.
The experimental activities related to the SER process
have been complemented with simulation carried out with
a Lagrangian-Eulerian approach. A short movie of the
simulated fluidized bed have been posted in the ASCENT
website. Experimental long-term multi-cycle runs were
performed in a micro-fixed bed reactor set-up to test the
chemical stability of the materials. A satisfactory stability in
relevant operating conditions has been achieved up to
200 cycles.
As for the CSHIFT, benchmarking of the process clearly
showed that the process has a good potential when the
process is run in an adiabatic manner with an efficient heat
integration between the carbonator and calciner. New,
alternative, process CSHIFT concept have been discussed
and modeled.
The ASCENT consortium is proud to contribute with
the other EU initiatives in paving the future of the
worldwide research in the advanced CCUS processes
and demonstrating the value of continued EU research,
including the contribution of the UK. Assuming that all the
Mission Innovation partners remain committed to the initial
strategy agreed during the COP21, the contribution of
the ASCENT representatives within Mission Innovation are
expected to have significant and far-reaching consequences
in the long term worldwide research on the decarbonisation
of industry and power
Contact Details:
Web: www.ascentproject.eu
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme FP7 under grant agreement no 608512