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“With the current mix of new power plants, by the
year 2030,” he said, “about two-thirds of all carbon dioxide emissions
will come from existing coal-fueled power plants, so it is critical
that we demonstrate technology to address these releases.”
The funds from TXU Power will be matched by funds
from a dozen or more other power companies and process suppliers who
will participate in the TXU Carbon Management Program. With these
funds, Rochelle, holder of the Carol and Henry Groppe Professorship in
Chemical Engineering, will optimize the chemical and mechanical
features of a carbon capture technology that uses a liquid amine
chemical.
“We are thrilled to team with a prestigious
university such as UT Austin,” said Richard Wistrand, senior vice
president and chief fossil officer, TXU Power. “TXU has outlined a
vision to lower carbon dioxide emission rates through development of
new technologies, and Dr. Rochelle’s research will undoubtedly make
great strides toward this development.”
Rochelle spent the past six years developing the
technology with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy and the
Texas Advanced Technology Program. Like its commercial counterparts,
his process captures carbon dioxide gas by dissolving it in a solution
containing the chemical monoethanolamine or a related amine. The
solution is then boiled to produce pure carbon dioxide.
In Rochelle’s campus laboratory, he will work to
improve this approach by using a chemical additive to increase the
rate of carbon dioxide absorption into the solution, and assessing the
overall capture process using computer models. Actual tests of the
carbon capture process will be run on a small, pilot plant at the J.J.
Pickle Research Campus.
Rochelle is an expert on reducing industrial
emissions. For these studies, he will draw upon two decades of
experience developing and testing similar technology to remove
hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide from natural gas.
Rochelle will share one third of the TXU funds with
other colleagues in the university’s College of Engineering and in the
Jackson School of Geosciences. These colleagues will help test how
well the process works and evaluate an option for storing captured
carbon dioxide.
For process verification, Rochelle will work with
colleagues at the college’s Center for Energy and Environmental
Resources at the Pickle Campus. The colleagues, part of the
Separations Research Program, oversee the small, pilot plant housed
alongside the center’s building.
In the college’s Department of Petroleum and
Geosystems Engineering, the Joint Industry Project for Geologic CO2
Storage will investigate how carbon dioxide captured using Rochelle’s
process will behave if stored underground in a high-pressure, liquid
form. Sandstone formations common in Texas and some other states are
already being considered nationally for this type of storage.
Colleagues at the Jackson School’s Bureau of
Economic Geology will also study this storage option at the bureau’s
Gulf Coast Carbon Center. They will evaluate using this liquid carbon
dioxide to improve enhanced oil recovery, an approach already in use
by petroleum companies. |
