RTI International - News Release - 8.25.2008
RTI International Will Develop Membrane Technology to Reduce Coal-Fired Power Plant Carbon Emissions
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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. -- As part of an effort to develop new and cost-effective strategies to capture carbon dioxide, researchers at RTI International will develop and integrate new polymer membrane technologies into an existing coal-fired power plant to reduce carbon emissions.
The two-year project worth almost $2 million is funded by the Department of Energy as one of 15 projects to develop strategies for capturing and managing carbon dioxide.
“Existing coal-fired power plants present an enormous opportunity for the development of carbon-dioxide capture and sequestration technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and ultimately mitigate global warming,” said Lora Toy, Ph.D., project manager at RTI. “Membrane-based processes could be a promising solution as they are energy-efficient, easy to operate and maintain, and are easy to retrofit to existing processes.”
As part of the project, RTI researchers will collaborate with Arkema Inc. and Generon IGS to develop a membrane-based process that will be cost-effective and reliable to retrofit into existing pulverized coal-fired power plants to capture flue-gas carbon dioxide. The project will focus on novel high-performance membrane materials, improved hollow-fiber membrane module design, and process development for efficient integration of the carbon dioxide capture system into an existing coal-fired power plant.
The goal is to capture 90 percent of the carbon dioxide from the plant’s flue gas with less than a 20 percent increase in the cost of electricity to consumers.
The 15 projects focus on five areas of interest for carbon dioxide capture: membranes, solvents, sorbents, oxycombustion (flue gas purification and boiler development), and chemical looping.
According to the International Energy Agency, more than 27 billion tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide was emitted by fuel combustion processes worldwide in 2005, and the United States contributed about 22 percent of these emissions. Roughly one-third of those carbon dioxide emissions come from coal-fired power generation.
RTI’s carbon dioxide research projects are part of the clean energy program of RTI’s Center for Energy Technology. RTI researchers are developing innovative solutions for problems associated with the commercial production and use of clean energy for electric power generation as well as fuels for industry and transportation. RTI researchers also are working in areas such as carbon sequestration, hydrogen production and storage, biomass conversion, advanced gasification, clean fuel technologies, and gas cleaning technologies.
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