Onsite Research
Modular Carbon Dioxide Capture Facility
NETL is leading research efforts to make today's electric power plants operate
more cleanly, and to enable tomorrow's systems to perform with near-zero emissions.
Highly efficient combustion of fossil fuels is essential to achieving clean
power generation, a national strategic goal. To this end, existing plants need
technologies to help meet current and emerging regulations, notably for mercury,
nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter. Future plants need cost-effective
technologies to achieve near-zero emissions and for CO2 capture and long-term
storage (sequestration). Efficient handling of fuel stream sorbents used to
absorb, clean, capture, and separate combustion by-products for disposal or
reuse is necessary to meet these goals.
To accelerate the development and evaluation of low-cost separation and capture
technologies, NETL is designing and constructing a flexible, Modular CO2 Capture
Facility (MCCF). This facility will be able to simulate the operation of advanced
fossil energy conversion systems in order to test new capture technologies
on coal combustion flue gas, as well as on synthetic gas from advanced fossil
fuel conversion systems. Experimental data collected for one capture technology
ultimately can serve as a basis for further engineering scale-up decisions,
and can help establish operational performance standards and targets for CO2 capture.
In the flue gas mode, the MCCF can mimic coal-fired combustion processes.
The combustor can be fired with natural gas, coal, or a combination of the
two. As an example of the capacity of the system, the burning of approximately
40 pounds of pulverized coal per hour will produce 110 standard cubic feet
per minute (scfm) of flue gas that is laden with various pollutants. A versatile “black-box” design
will permit a particular capture/separation technology to be incorporated at
various points along the flue gas path. If regeneration or recycling of the
capture medium for economical reuse is required, this step can be readily integrated
into the system.
MCCF simulates capture and separation technologies
In the fuel gas mode, the MCCF can blend various high-pressure gases ( e.g .,
hydrogen, carbon monoxide, water, CO2 , and minor components) to simulate
the composition of gasification products, for example from integrated gasification
combined-cycle (IGCC) plants. Again, the design versatility of the MCCF system
will permit researchers to install a capture technology, possibly including
regeneration, at many points along the fuel gas path to test and verify the
efficiency of the capture process at different locations within the system.
“Black-box” capture module can be inserted at many points in fuel stream
The MCCF has evolved as a versatile, multipurpose research facility. As the
Life-Cycle Test System (LCTS), it was used to study SO2 and NOx removal processes
from flue gas. In its current configuration, it has been used to study CO2 removal processes such as the ability of zeolitic filter media to remove CO2 from flue gas. The MCCF offers industry, academic, and other sequestration
stakeholders the opportunity to further develop CO2 capture and separation
technologies through cooperative ventures with NETL.
For more information contact: James
Hoffman
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