The liaison committee ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures) has appointed SINTEF and NTNU to align the structure of a pan-European infrastructure within the capture and storage of CO2 (CCS) together with partners from 10 European countries. Of a total of 81 million euros is 20 million invested in Norway. This will be used within new advanced scientific equipment in the areas of absorption technology, material technology, combustion technology, cryogenic processes and storage. The laboratories will be placed to the disposal of the guest researchers from the European Union/European economic area.
Watch video presentations of laboratory rigs
- The High Pressure Oxy-fuel combustion - HIPROX facility
- CO2Mix Phase Equilibrium Facility (CO2MIX)
- Depressurization Facility (DEPRESS)
- Flow Assurance for Safety Systems Facility (FASafe)
- Cold CO2 Capture Pilot Rig (CCCP/SEPPIL)
- Demonstration of Flow Assurance for CO2 Transport Facility (DeFACTO)
- Facility for High Pressure or Complex Phase Equilibrium Measurements (HPC-PE)
- Viscocity and Density Apparatus (VISC-DENS)
ECCSEL Norway CCS RI will pursue the following scientific goals within CO2 capture and transport:
- Absorption: To enable the full characterization and pilot testing of new phase-change solvents with a potential for reducing the solvent regeneration heat requirement to less than 1.9 GJ per tonne CO2 captured. Further, to enable screening, equilibrium and kinetic measurements at elevated pressures, thus making it better suited for CO2 capture studies aimed at pre-combustion and industrial application.
- Polymer membranes: To enable the development of new high-permeability membranes with sufficient selectivity and to test them over a wide range of experimental conditions. Further, to enable a scaled-up manufacturing of successful lab-scale membranes.
- Advanced materials: To be a leading actor in the development of technologies relevant for CO2 capture by establishing an advanced and innovative infrastructure for robust fabrication, handling, characterization, and testing of functional inorganic materials. It will be applied for (i) membranes for hydrogen (HTM, metal), oxygen (OTM) and CO2 (dual phase, hybrid) separation and (ii) sorbents for oxygen separation (CAR)/ chemical looping combustion (CLC) and reforming (CLR) / enhanced methane reforming and water gas shift (WGS)/carbonate looping and low-temperature CO2 capture.
- High-pressure oxy-fuel combustion: To build an infrastructure enabling the development of a technology for pressurized combustion in coal-fired boilers. This will increase heat recovery and reduce CO2 compression work.
- CO2 mixture characterization: To establish an internationally unique infrastructure to fill in missing experimental data for CO2 mixtures and conditions relevant for CCS, in particular transport and conditioning: (i) depressurization flow behaviour and (ii) liquid phase viscosity.
- Educational aspects: All the proposed infrastructure elements will be used in the education of first-class candidates on master and PhD level, with relevant CCS competence for industry and academia. An estimated 30 PhDs and 50 MSc's will be educated over a five-year period.