Sorbent Assisted Carbon Capture Tailored for Low CO2 Concentrations from Air and Low Industrial CO2 Emissions

The aim of the project is to develop a new capture technology for low CO2 concentrations from air and low industrial CO2 emissions. The main challenges with low-concentration CO2 capture are high costs and that the current industrial methods are not energy efficient enough. Because of this, there is currently no capture technology available for industries with low CO2 concentrations in the exhaust gas, even though the cumulative effect of these is significant. In order to achieve the climate goals, technologies for capturing low-concentration CO2, including both capture from air and from industries with low CO2 concentrations in the exhaust gas, must be implemented on a large scale. Therefore, further development of new methods is needed, and we believe we can achieve this by using porous and functionalized solids (sorbents) that react with, and thus capture, CO2 molecules. In order to have a continuous capture process, the sorbents must be regenerated to be used again after it has been filled with CO2. Since there are large volumes of gases that need to be cleaned, we will create so-called structured units which are again built up from the above-mentioned developed materials. The structured units have a large surface area and great mechanical strength, and they make the process more efficient. They are made as modules and can therefore be put together like bricks until the desired size of the capture system is achieved. When well-structured units have been produced and tested on a lab scale, we will develop a model of one to two processes that includes the characteristics of these units. The models will be able to give us answers about the processes' energy efficiency and operating economy. After choosing the most optimal process, we will build a larger test facility (so-called pilot scale) for more industrial-like test conditions. The latter is important in order to be able to scale up to efficient, large facilities, with capture of CO2 on a million-ton scale.

The overall objective of SENSATION is to develop a sorbent-based carbon capture technology tailored for low CO2 concentrations varying from 400 ppm in air (Direct Air Capture, DAC, application) to 1-3 vol% for industrial sources. This will be achieved by 1) Validating scalable, commercially available sorbent materials that have high capacity and selectivity at low concentrations of CO2 and have a long-term stability; 2) Structuring sorbents by coating the sorbent material onto a substrate monolith. This includes selection of a substrate and a coating process of the sorbent to maximize bed density while lowering the pressure drop and thereby reducing the cycle time; 3) Designing a compact system with optimized temperature swing adsorption (TSA) and vacuum temperature swing adsorption (VTSA) processes to reduce energy and capital costs; 4) Techno-economic analysis to link the experimental development to large-scale design; 5) TRL6 demonstration of the developed technology at two industrial locations to test carbon capture both at very low (from air; via DAC) and low CO2 concentrations (from industrial off gas). Lessons learned during the operation will be used for implementation at scale; 6) Life cycle assessment to identify which key indicators need to be addressed to limit the environmental impacts of the technology, and to assess social impacts; 7) Exploitation, including activities on commercialization and scalability, yielding a roadmap for commercial deployment by 2030.