Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - GRAMOFON (New process for efficient CO2 capture by innovative adsorbents based on modified graphene aerogels and MOF materials)

Teaser

Global warming resulting from the emission of greenhouse gases has received widespread attention with international action from governments and industries, including a number of collaborative programs, such as SET-Plan, and very recently the International Climate Change hold...

Summary

Global warming resulting from the emission of greenhouse gases has received widespread attention with international action from governments and industries, including a number of collaborative programs, such as SET-Plan, and very recently the International Climate Change hold 2015 in Paris. Key European Commission roadmaps towards 2030 and 2050 have identified Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) as a central low-carbon technology to achieve the EU’s 2050 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission reduction objectives, although there still remains a great deal to be done in terms of embedding CCS in future policy frameworks.

The selective capture and storage of CO2 at low cost in an energy-efficient is a world-wide challenge. One of the most promising technologies for CO2 capture is adsorption using solid sorbents, with the most important advantage being the energy penalty reduction during capture and regeneration of the material compared to liquid absorption.

The key objectives of GRAMOFON project are:
(i) to develop and protoype a new energy and cost-competitive dry separation process for post-combustion CO2 capture based on innovative hybrid porous solids Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) and Graphene Oxide nanostructures.
(ii) to optimize the CO2 desorption process by means of Microwave Swing Desorption (MSD) and Joule effect, that will surpass the efficiency of the conventional heating procedures.

This innovative concept will be set up by world key players expert in synthesis, adsorption, characterization and modelling, as well as process design and economic projections. The Partnership is composed by:
(i) AIMPLAS – Asociación de Investigación de Materiales Plásticos y Conexas (Spain)
(ii) CNRS – Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France)
(iii) UMONS – Université de Mons (Belgium)
(iv) FHG – Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Angewandten Forschung E.V. (Germany)
(v) Graphenea, S.A. (Spain)
(vi) PDC – Process Design Center BV (Netherlands)
(vii) E2V Technologies Limited (United Kingdom)
(viii) MOF Technologies Limited (United Kingdom)
(ix) KRIC – Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (Republic of Korea)

The project has started on 1st October 2016 with a timeline of 42 months ending on 31st March 2020. This project has received funding from the Work Programme Horizon 2020 of the European Commission with Grant Agreement number 727619.

Work performed

During the first year of the project different methodologies to produce graphene aerogels has been developed, working mainly on the reduction routes to make the previous hydrogel, as well as the drying process. Different problems related to the effect of parameters have been found, but finally, the process has been optimized. The relation between aerogel structure and CO2 capture performance will be explored in second year.
MOFs and combination with GO have been studied from morphology and CO2 capture point of view. Shaping works have been begun in collaboration with KRICT partner with the objective to improve mechanical and thermal properties of MOFs, minimizing the effect and loss of capture properties due shaping process. Initial results have shown adsorption reduction bellow 10%.
During this first year has been developed a complete screening with different MOF/graphene oxide mixtures with high performances in CO2 capture. Composites have been characterized by CO2 sorption isotherms at ambient temperature and will be exposed to permittivity measurements.
Different studies about microwave absorption capabilities, using dielectric measurements have been done for all materials developed. Results are the basis to design a microwave antenna to provide the most homogeneous heating behaviour.
During the second period microwave antenna for the first prototype at laboratory level has been manufactured. Initial trials with selected MOF/GO composites has shown very promising results in terms of energy and time saving. Further trials will complete characterization work and new prototype for 200g sorbent scale will be manufactured and validated.
Work on the economic analysis of the reference cases for the power, cement, and steel sector have been done. Based on semi-ideal adsorbent performance, a preliminary comparison of utilities & auxiliaries costs between the reference CO2 capture technology and the GRAMOFON MSA adsorption technology has been made for the power plant, cement plant and steel plant. LCA data for analysis have been collected during this period.

Final results

The results obtained in this period imply reasonable CO2 values (around 3.0 mmol/g in the case of APTES modification and 2.0 mmol/g for the EDA). This is interesting because the combination of these Adsorption properties with huge microwave susceptor behaviour implies the development of a material with innovative Adsorption/Desorption properties.
The new MOF/GO composites developed in the project have opened the opportunity to explore new characterizations of MOF/GO materials than have never been reported in the literature. Also, the materials’ interface remains not very well understood in the literature but here, we show that by combining advanced characterization methods as well as simulation, we can provide new information regarding the interface.
Shaping scale of the new MOF and MOF/GO composites never has been optimized and done until now. This prove the capability of material synthesis at medium or large scale in a suitable shape for adsorption processes.
First prototype of microwave desorption is showing promising results in terms of energy and time saving, that never before has reached by the literature. This is also accompanied by the first comparisons between GRAMOFON system and traditional CCS process in power, cement and steel industry. The initial approaches has shown important savings in the case of cement and steel plants, but no improvements in the case of power plants.
As a summary, at this point of work, and following the project schedule, we have important impacts and promising results in terms of energy savings from the CO2 desorption process, due the great effectiveness of MOF/GO materials with microwave reactor.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.gramofonproject.eu/.