(630h) New Conceptual Design Models for Carbon Capture and Utilization Via Carbonate-Based Construction Materials

Carbon capture and sequestration by amine-based absorption technology is too costly for widespread deployment and also suffers from safety and environmental concerns about the ultimate fate of the sequestered fluid. We prefer carbon capture and utilization as carbonate-based cementitious material [1]. This CO₂ utilization strategy exhibits two major advantages; it turns a waste into a useful product and obtains the collateral benefit of reducing CO₂ emissions from cement kilns. The overall cost to produce carbonate containing structural materials will be highly sensitive to process design, so the problem of analyzing the technical and commercial feasibility of carbonate-based supplementary cementitious material becomes an exercise in creative conceptual design and process intensification. Point sources of CO₂ exist at power generation facilities as low pressure, relatively dilute gaseous mixtures. Geologic brines are a reasonable candidate for calcium and magnesium sources to minimize limestone calcination. Therefore, rational conceptual design in this system requires a framework for collectively considering three-phase contact, rate-based chemical reaction, and multicomponent, electrolytic mass transport. There are methods in the literature for dealing with these effects in binary combinations, but the combined effect of concentrated multicomponent reaction and diffusion among electrolytes occurring in conjunction with both absorption and precipitation processes does not find a complete treatment in the literature. Here, we present a framework for considering these effects collectively and consistently using the Maxwell-Stefan description of diffusion [2]. We present some preliminary results and address the remaining challenges that exist in applying these methods to the production of carbonate containing cementitious material to capture and utilize CO₂.

References

[1] Constantz, Brent R., Andrew Youngs, and Terence Hollands. Reduced-carbon Footprint Concrete Compositions. Calera Corporation, assignee. Patent WO 2010048457 A1. 29 Apr. 2010.

[2] Taylor, R., & Krishna, R. (1993). Multicomponent mass transfer (Vol. 2). John Wiley & Sons.