US$2 million DOE grant awarded to engineer to study CO2 capture

The DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) has awarded Joan Brennecke, the Keating-Crawford Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, a US$2 million US Department of Energy (DOE) grant for research into how ionic liquids, or salt in a liquid state, can improve the efficiency and economics of the carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture process.

Ionic liquids require less energy than today’s approaches to capturing CO₂.

Brennecke will study the encapsulation of solid compounds that turn into an ionic liquid when they react with CO₂ and turn back into a solid when the CO₂ is released.

Brennecke believes ionic liquids are a potentially pivotal component of an integrated system that can safely and economically sequester combustion-generated CO₂, thereby mitigating its impact on climate change.

The liquids have the potential to efficiently capture CO₂ from the flue gas of coal-fired plants, as demonstrated in 2004 by a research team led by Brennecke and Edward J. Maginn, the Dorini Family Professor of Energy Studies and chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, as part of a project sponsored by the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Edited from press release by Harleigh Hobbs

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcoal.com/coal/08012016/two-million-dollar-doe-grant-awarded-to-engineer-to-study-carbon-dioxide-capture-23/