(289g) Novel Facilitated Transport Membrane for Low Cost Carbon Capture in Cement, Steel, and Steam Methane Reforming

With 40 billion tons of anthropogenic green house gases (GHG) being added to the atmosphere every year, it is vital to make existing processes carbon neutral to prevent catastrophic climate change. A majority of the world still relies on fossil fuel technology for power and to provide the chemical building blocks for today’s materials. Carbon capture technology allows users to filter and sequester the CO₂ at the source and reduce emissions by up to 90%. Currently, separation and concentration of the CO2 stream in preparation for liquefaction and storage is done using amine towers. These towers are costly (>$50/ton of CO2) and have a parasitic energy load of 20-40%, making them unfeasible for wide adoption. Hard to abate industrial sectors like cement, steel, and grey hydrogen are unlikely to be served by electrification but are equally as unlikely to be replaced by novel technology. Compact Membrane Systems (CMS) has developed a novel facilitated transport membrane to deliver low cost carbon capture. Three use cases will be discussed: cement, steel, and steam methane reforming.

Optiperm™ carbon is a facilitated transport membrane with significantly higher permeance than existing membrane technology. The technology uses a fluoropolymer composite membrane with a facilitating agent incorporated into the polymer to pull CO2 across the membrane. The increased flux and high selectivity positions Optiperm™ carbon to reduce the cost of carbon capture across multiple applications. Membranes operate in energy efficient modes, so can reduce the parasitic load imposed by alternative technologies like amine towers. Results thus far have shown a very high flux membrane (2000-5000 GPU) with adequate selectivity (18-30) at realistic conditions that would result in substantially lower capture costs and increased efficiency. The membranes attain this performance at elevated temperature (60-100°C) and in the presence of poisons (SOx and NOx). Results from the aging and poison testing will be discussed.

Because Optipermâ„¢ carbon has a unique set of characteristics. CMS has been able to design a two stage cascade approach to decrease the energy use while maintaining 90% CO2 recovery and 95% CO2 product purity. Design considerations and cost sensitivities for operating conditions will be discussed fot the three use cases.