Integrating Process Safety into Early Stages of Engineering Designs

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. Hard to abate industries like cement, steel, limestone, and glass making, need a carbon dioxide solution to continue to produce 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%. Hard to abate industrial sectors are unlikely to be served by electrification but are equally as unlikely to be replaced by novel technology or served by existing carbon capture technology. Compact Membrane Systems (CMS) has developed a novel Optipermâ„¢ membrane platform to enable the efficient separation of two of the most critical separations of our industry: olefin paraffin separation and carbon capture.

Given the nature of flue gas streams, CMS chose to develop a membrane with active transport mechanism to ensure the membrane’s performance at low pressure, elevated temperature, and in the presence of contaminants. This gives more flux and footprint than alternate membrane solutions and delivers practical, operational systems for carbon capture applications for less than <$50/ton. This talk will cover the performance of the membrane within the planned operating window including temperature, pressure, CO2 concentration, and stage cut. Special attention will be given to the behavior of the membrane at elevated temperature (>50°C). Initial stability data with SOx, NOx, and CO will also be examined.

While the membrane itself provides the technical unlock for viability in post combustion flue gas conditions, the system design ensures economic operation. CMS has developed a model to iterate through potential designs and minimize for a given parameter like CAPEX, annual cost of capture or electricity use. This talk will explore the sensitivities of the optimal membrane design based on CO2 feed concentration and electricity price for hard to abate emissions like cement and steel flue gas.