Page 16 - European Energy Innovation - spring 2019 publication
P. 16
16 Spring 2019 European Energy Innovation
COMMUNICATION
NANOMEMC2
Innovative membranes for
Carbon Capture applications
Within the current environmental concerns about global carbon capture solutions in industry.
warming, Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS)
is seen as a necessary medium-term technology to Finally, NANOMEMC2 seeks strong collaboration with
reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere the Republic of Korea in the field of CCS to exploit
while waiting for a complete transition towards a more complementary expertise and synergies in the
sustainable energy system. development of new capture solutions.
Currently, the main downside to the application of carbon During the project, different types of nanofillers based on
capture (CC) technologies is the high implementation cost; cellulose nanofibers or graphene and graphene oxide have
therefore, strong research efforts are required to optimize been analised so as to understand their ability to boost
current capture processes and make CC an economically the separation performance of conventional membranes
viable solution for the decarbonisation of industry. materials with interesting CO2 capture capabilities.
The NANOMEMC2 project aims to overcome such Two main families of membranes were investigated,
limitations through the development of CO2 capture the so-called Facilitated Transport Hybrid Membranes
innovative materials, membranes and processes which (FTHM) which separate the CO2 through a selective carrier
are able to achieve a substantial cost reduction, and help mediated transport mechanism, and the Continuous
achieve the reduction of CO2 emissions. Phase Hybrid Membranes, which mainly exploit the
molecular sieve mechanism to separate CO2 from
To that aim NANOMEMC2 applies new membranes to other gases. More than 50 1st generation and about
both Pre- and Post-combustion capture stages in order 30 2nd generation materials have been produced and
to increase the flexibility of the proposed solutions and tested, most of which are very close to or above the
maximize the resulting technologies’ chances of success. Robeson’s upper limit which is usually applied to compare
NANOMEMC2 also addresses the development of new, membranes separation performances.
high efficiency capture processes, which are selected
through techno-economic and environmental analysis, to Most promising 1st generation materials have already
obtain solutions tailored for a competitive implementation been tested in the Colacem cement production facility
of membrane-based capture applications in relevant in Gubbio (Italy). The results were very interesting and
industrial plants. made it possible to obtain lab scale permeability data
in an industrial environment. A hollow fiber module of
The above targets are being validated during the project, in the 2nd generation materials is now being prepared by
suitable industrial environments, to build a solid business the consortium for the second industrial experimental
case for the future deployment of membrane-based campaign, while new 3rd generation membranes based
On April 11th 2019 in Brussels, Belgium, join autstahtetfhuell“aCgOe2nsdealefoctrivtheemdeamy barnadneresgfiostrecrafrobrofnreceapotnure and
decarbonised fuels” workshop. Have a look
www.nanomemc2.eu/industrial-workshop/
www.europeanenergyinnovation.eu
