GE Awarded DOE Project to Pilot CO2 Capture Technology for Power Plants

September 17, 2015 | By Business Wire News

OKLAHOMA CITY

Calling it CO2 “Capture Technology in a Bottle,” a team of researchers at GE’s Oil & Gas Technology Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma have been awarded close to $1 million in Phase I funding by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratories (NETL) to plan and propose a large scale pilot testing of its CO2 Capture technology solution.

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Members of the CO2 capture team in Niskayuna in front of a bench-scale CO2 capture system they have designed to test the team’s new CO2 capture solvent. Working with the DOE’s NETL and TCM, the Global Research teams in Niskayuna and the new Oil & Gas Tech Center in Oklahoma City are preparing plans to perform a demonstration test at the world’s largest carbon capture center in Mongstad, Norway. (Photo: Business Wire)

GE chemists have developed a solution that effectively uses a class of amino silicone compounds at various temperatures to capture carbon. These compounds are the same as those found in hair conditioners and fabric softeners. In hair products and washing machines, these compounds are used to soften your hair or clothing. GE is using them attach to and essentially wash out CO2 gas from a power plant flue stack.

How it works

At temperatures of around 105 degrees F, the amino silicone materials attach to CO2 gas. When the heat is increased another 100 degrees F, these materials release the carbon and can then be re-used to capture more. One of the big advantages of GE’s technology is that it does not require any water, which substantially reduces the energy required to capture the carbon.

“For decades, scientists from around the world have focused their efforts on finding more effective, less expensive ways to reduce CO2 emissions in the atmosphere,” said Phil DiPietro, Technical Manager, CO2 Capture and Separation, GE’s Oil and Gas Technology Center in Oklahoma City. “GE scientists have developed an innovative solution to realize both goals, which works well in the lab. Through this project, we will have the opportunity to perform tests at a much larger scale to learn how to make it work in a power plant.”

Testing of GE’s new CO2 capture solution will take place at the CO2 Technology Center at Mongstad (TCM), Norway, which is the world’s largest industrial scale test facility. This $1 billion (USD) facility is fully instrumented and designed to provide technology developers with an infrastructure to subject their technologies to all the stresses that real-time operations would entail. GE is partnering with the CO2 Capture Centre in Mongstad.

TCM Managing Director Mr. Roy Vardheim said: “We are very satisfied that the close co-operation between the US and Norway now facilitates bringing leading technologies and companies to our world class testing arena at Mongstad. We are impressed with the technological developments by our US partners, and are confident that they will benefit from the unique qualities of the TEST facilities and services that TCM will provide.

As part of Phase 1 funding, GE will advance planning of their Amino-silicone CO2 capture technology towards large scale pilot testing. It is expected that two of the six phase 1 projects will be selected for Phase 2. The Phase 2 awards for construction and execution of pilot testing is anticipated by mid-2016. The large scale testing will aim to demonstrate the technology at industrial scale and provide final confidence in the maturity of the Carbon Capture technology for full scale commercial deployment, reducing emissions from power plants and other large industrial point sources of CO2.

GE’s technology development taps into decades of expertise working with amino silicone materials when GE operated a silicones business. The NETL project is part of a decade long joint cooperation between the US and Norwegian energy authorities on CO2 Capture and Storage technologies. The co-operation between the US and Norwegian Energy authorities in the area of carbon capture and storage dates back to 2004, when the two governments signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU).

About GE Global Research

GE Global Research is the hub of technology development for all of GE’s businesses. Our scientists and engineers redefine what’s possible, drive growth for our businesses, and find answers to some of the world’s toughest problems. We innovate 24 hours a day, with sites in Niskayuna, New York; San Ramon, California; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Detroit, Michigan; Bangalore, India; Shanghai, China; Munich, Germany; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Visit GE Global Research on the web at www.geglobalresearch.com. Connect with our technologists at www.geglobalresearch.com/blog and www.twitter.com/geresearch.