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At least 55 records · Page 3
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Carbon Dioxide Capture Chemistry of Amino Acid Functionalized Metal-Organic Frameworks in Humid Flue Gas

Here, metal-organic framework-808 has been functionalized with 11 amino acids (AA) to produce a series of MOF-808-AA structures. The adsorption of CO 2 under flue gas conditions revealed that glycine- and DL-lysine-functionalized MOF-808 (MOF-808-Gly and -DL-Lys) have the highest uptake capacities. Enhanced CO 2 capture performance in the presence of water was observed and studied using single-component sorption isotherms, CO 2 /H 2 O binary isotherm, and dynamic breakthrough measurements. The key to the favorable performance was uncovered by deciphering the mechanism of CO 2 capture in the pores and attributed to the formation of bicarbonate as evidenced by 13 C and 15 N solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy studies. Based on these results, we examined the performance of MOF-808-Gly in simulated coal flue gas conditions and found that it is possible to capture and release CO 2 by vacuum swing adsorption. MOF-808-Gly was cycled at least 80 times with full retention of performance. This study significantly advances our understanding of CO 2 chemistry in MOFs by revealing how strongly bound amine moieties to the MOF backbone create the chemistry and environment within the pores, leading to the binding and release of CO 2 under mild conditions without application of heat.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗
NASA NTRS2011

Simulated Lunar Testing of Metabolic Heat Regenerated Temperature Swing Adsorption Technology

Metabolic heat regenerated Temperature Swing Adsorption (MTSA) technology is being developed for thermal and carbon dioxide (CO2) control for a Portable Life Support System (PLSS), as well as water recycling. An Engineering Development Unit (EDU) of the MTSA subassembly was designed and assembled for optimized Martian operations, but also meets system requirements for lunar operations. For lunar operations the MTSA sorption cycle is driven via a vacuum swing between suit ventilation loop pressure and lunar vacuum. The focus of this effort is operations and testing in a simulated lunar environment. This environment was simulated in Paragon s EHF vacuum chamber. The objective of this testing was to evaluate the full cycle performance of the MTSA Subassembly EDU, and to assess CO2 loading and pressure drop of the wash coated aluminum reticulated foam sorbent bed. The lunar testing proved out the feasibility of pure vacuum swing operation, making MTSA a technology that can be tested and used on the Moon prior to going to Mars. Testing demonstrated better than expected CO2 loading on the sorbent and nearly replicates the equilibrium data from the sorbent manufacturer. This had not been achieved in any of the previous sorbent loading tests performed by Paragon. Subsequently, the increased performance of the sorbent bed design indicates future designs will require less mass and volume than the current EDU rendering MTSA as very competitive for Martian PLSS applications.

Padilla, Sebastian A.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Simulated Lunar Testing of Metabolic Heat Regenerated Temperature Swing Adsorption

Metabolic heat regenerated Temperature Swing Adsorption (MTSA) technology is being developed for thermal and carbon dioxide (CO2) control for a Portable Life Support System (PLSS), as well as water recycling. An Engineering Development Unit (EDU) of the MTSA Subassembly (MTSAS) was designed and assembled for optimized Martian operations, but also meets system requirements for lunar operations. For lunar operations the MTSA sorption cycle is driven via a vacuum swing between suit ventilation loop pressure and lunar vacuum. The focus of this effort was testing in a simulated lunar environment. This environment was simulated in Paragon's EHF vacuum chamber. The objective of the testing was to evaluate the full cycle performance of the MTSA Subassembly EDU, and to assess CO2 loading and pressure drop of the wash coated aluminum reticulated foam sorbent bed. Lunar environment testing proved out the feasibility of pure vacuum swing operation, making MTSA a technology that can be tested and used on the Moon prior to going to Mars. Testing demonstrated better than expected CO2 Nomenclature loading on the sorbent and nearly replicates the equilibrium data from the sorbent manufacturer. This exceeded any of the previous sorbent loading tests performed by Paragon. Subsequently, the increased performance of the sorbent bed design indicates future designs will require less mass and volume than the current EDU rendering MTSA as very competitive for Martian PLSS applications.

Padilla, Sebastian A.↗
NASA NTRS2006

Stability Enhancement of Polymeric Sensing Films Using Fillers

Experiments have shown the stability enhancement of polymeric sensing films on mixing the polymer with colloidal filler particles (submicron-sized) of carbon black, silver, titanium dioxide, and fumed silicon dioxide. The polymer films are candidates for potential use as sensing media in micro/nano chemical sensor devices. The need for stability enhancement of polymer sensing films arises because such films have been found to exhibit unpredictable changes in sensing activity over time, which could result in a possible failure of the sensor device. The changes in the physical properties of a polymer sensing film caused by the sorption of a target molecule can be measured by any of several established transduction techniques: electrochemical, optical, calorimetric, or piezoelectric, for example. The transduction technique used in the current polymer stability experiments is based on piezoelectric principles using a quartz-crystal microbalance (QCM). The surface of the QCM is coated with the polymer, and the mass uptake by the polymer film causes a change in the oscillating frequency of the quartz crystal. The polymer used for the current study is ethyl cellulose. The polymer/ polymer composite solutions were prepared in 1,3 dioxolane solvent. The filler concentration was fixed at 10 weight percent for the composites. The polymer or polymer composite solutions were cast on the quartz crystal having a fundamental frequency of about 6 MHz. The coated crystal was subjected to a multistage drying process to remove all measurable traces of the solvent. In each experiment, the frequency of oscillation was measured while the QCM was exposed to clean, dry, flowing air for about 30 minutes, then to air containing a known concentration of isopropanol for about 30 minutes, then again to clean dry air for about 30 minutes, and so forth. This cycle of measurements for varying isopropanol concentrations was repeated at intervals for several months. The figure depicts some of the sensing film stability results for ethyl cellulose polymer, ethyl cellulose-carbon black, and ethyl cellulose-silicon dioxide composite systems. An ethyl cellulose film exhibited a marked decline in response in the first few months of study and settled to a steady average response after about four months. However, response varied widely around the average response for ethyl cellulose film. In contrast, ethyl cellulose- carbon black and ethyl cellulose-silicon dioxide composites also declined in the early months, but showed more repeatable sensing film activity after the initial decline. Similar trends were observed in experiments for ethyl cellulose-titanium dioxide and ethyl cellulose-silver composites.

Lin, Brian↗
DOE OSTI2022

CO 2 Capture by Hybrid Ultramicroporous TIFSIX‐3‐Ni under Humid Conditions Using Non‐Equilibrium Cycling

Abstract Although pyrazine‐linked hybrid ultramicroporous materials (HUMs, pore size <7 Å) are benchmark physisorbents for trace carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) capture under dry conditions, their affinity for water (H 2 O) mitigates their carbon capture performance in humid conditions. Herein, we report on the co‐adsorption of H 2 O and CO 2 by TIFSIX‐3‐Ni—a high CO 2 affinity HUM—and find that slow H 2 O sorption kinetics can enable CO 2 uptake and release using shortened adsorption cycles with retention of ca. 90 % of dry CO 2 uptake. Insight into co‐adsorption is provided by in situ infrared spectroscopy and ab initio calculations. The binding sites and sorption mechanisms reveal that both CO 2 and H 2 O molecules occupy the same ultramicropore through favorable interactions between CO 2 and H 2 O at low water loading. An energetically favored water network displaces CO 2 molecules at higher loading. Our results offer bottom‐up design principles and insight into co‐adsorption of CO 2 and H 2 O that is likely to be relevant across the full spectrum of carbon capture sorbents to better understand and address the challenge posed by humidity to gas capture.

Ullah, Saif↗
DOE OSTI2022

CO 2 Capture by Hybrid Ultramicroporous TIFSIX‐3‐Ni under Humid Conditions Using Non‐Equilibrium Cycling

Abstract Although pyrazine‐linked hybrid ultramicroporous materials (HUMs, pore size <7 Å) are benchmark physisorbents for trace carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) capture under dry conditions, their affinity for water (H 2 O) mitigates their carbon capture performance in humid conditions. Herein, we report on the co‐adsorption of H 2 O and CO 2 by TIFSIX‐3‐Ni—a high CO 2 affinity HUM—and find that slow H 2 O sorption kinetics can enable CO 2 uptake and release using shortened adsorption cycles with retention of ca. 90 % of dry CO 2 uptake. Insight into co‐adsorption is provided by in situ infrared spectroscopy and ab initio calculations. The binding sites and sorption mechanisms reveal that both CO 2 and H 2 O molecules occupy the same ultramicropore through favorable interactions between CO 2 and H 2 O at low water loading. An energetically favored water network displaces CO 2 molecules at higher loading. Our results offer bottom‐up design principles and insight into co‐adsorption of CO 2 and H 2 O that is likely to be relevant across the full spectrum of carbon capture sorbents to better understand and address the challenge posed by humidity to gas capture.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2025

Explosive Byproduct Gas Transport Through Sorptive Geomedia

Current underground nuclear explosion (UNE) detection strategies rely heavily on atmospheric noble gas sampling of radioxenon. However, discriminating nuclear weapons testing programs from civilian sources is difficult due to highly variable atmospheric radioxenon backgrounds and processes affecting subsurface transport of parent radionuclides. Here, we aim to study the transport of gases produced by subsurface explosions as novel stable signatures for underground nuclear explosion (UNE) monitoring. These gases may be produced in large quantities with distinct molecular ratios, which will be impacted by subsurface transport processes. To demonstrate how ratios of gases produced by explosions can change during transport in geomaterials, we conducted laboratory benchtop experiments on the transport of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and hydrogen (H 2 ) gases through variably saturated zeolitic tuff, which is abundant at the historic US testing site. We observed that zeolitic tuff sorbs substantial quantities of CO 2 while allowing H 2 to transport more freely, leading to changes in the molecular ratios of the two gases along the transport pathway. Gas uptake in the dry zeolitic tuff core was 72.3% for CO 2 , compared with 53.4% for xenon and 7.6% for H 2 . The presence of 20% water saturation disrupted the CO 2 sorption process, though to a lesser extent than observed for noble gases, with a 36.7% drop in xenon sorption compared with a 21.9% drop for CO 2 . These results represent the first observations of zeolite sorption altering explosive gas ratios during transport through geomedia relevant to nuclear proliferation monitoring.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2015

Simulation Apps Bring Us Closer to Mars

My work with mathematical modeling and computer simulations began in earnest in 1987 when I signed on with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA. At the time I was developing computer simulations to support the design of carbon dioxide (CO2) removal systems for the International Space Station (ISS) life support system. CO2 is a human metabolic waste, produced at a rate of a kilogram per day per crewmember. CO2 must be removed from the crew cabin, as it will quickly become detrimental to crew health. The systems used to remove CO2 are typically based on sorption processes, which include complex interactions of heat transfer, mass transfer, and gas flow through porous media. At this time, there were no commercial options for solving a set of coupled mathematical models such as partial differential equations (PDEs); you either force-fit the physics into a thermal analysis package or wrote your own code, complete with discretization, meshing, and solution algorithms. Unfortunately, coding CO2 removal processes from scratch did not allow an appropriate focus on the challenging yet crucial task of understanding and capturing the underlying physics via appropriate mathematical models. Configuration control was often simply ignored due to tight schedules, resulting in a code that would be quicker for a second party to rewrite than modify. In the early 2000s, I decided to move CO2 removal simulations to a platform with built-in meshing, solvers, and postprocessing capabilities, and that could solve user-defined multiphysics PDEs. The program chosen to meet these needs was COMSOL Multiphysics®. Along with freeing the engineer to focus on the underlying physics, a degree of configuration control was automatically achieved via a consistent user interface, thus allowing COMSOL users to share computer models. My team has developed simulations that are already providing a valuable debugging capability for the ISS CO2 removal system, and will provide guidance in upgrades to that system.

Knox, Jim↗
DOE OSTI2023

Structure–Transport Relationships of Water–Organic Solvent Co-transport in Carbon Molecular Sieve (CMS) Membranes

We explore the effects of the carbon molecular sieve (CMS) microstructure on the separation performance and transport mechanism of water–organic mixtures. Specifically, we utilize PIM-1 dense films and integrally skinned asymmetric hollow fiber membranes as polymer precursors for the CMS materials. The PIM-1 membranes were pyrolyzed under several different pyrolysis atmospheres (argon, carbon dioxide, and diluted hydrogen gas) and at multiple pyrolysis temperatures. Detailed gas physisorption measurements reveal that membranes pyrolyzed under 4% H 2 and CO 2 had broadened ultramicropore distributions (pore diameter <7 Å) compared to Ar pyrolysis, and pyrolysis under CO 2 increased ultramicropore volume and broadened micropore distributions at increased pyrolysis temperatures. Gravimetric water and p-xylene sorption and diffusion measurements reveal that the PIM-1-derived CMS materials are more hydrophilic than other CMS materials that have been previously studied, which leads to sorption-diffusion estimations showing water-selective permeation. Water permeation in the vapor phase, pervaporation, and liquid-phase hydraulic permeation reveal that the isobaric permeation modes (vapor permeation and pervaporation) are reasonably well predicted by the sorption-diffusion model, whereas the hydraulic permeation mode is significantly underpredicted (>250×). Conversely, the permeation of p-xylene is well predicted by the sorption-diffusion model in all cases. The collection of pore size analysis, vapor sorption and diffusion, and permeation in different modalities creates a picture of a combined transport mechanism in which water–under high transmembrane pressures–permeates via a Poiseuille-style mechanism, whereas p-xylene solutes in the mixture permeate via sorption-diffusion.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2025

Enhancing Selective Hydrofluorocarbon Greenhouse Gas Capture via Halogenation of Metal–Organic Frameworks

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are anthropogenically produced greenhouse gases with longer atmospheric lifetimes and higher global warming potentials than those of carbon dioxide. General strategies to abate their emissions from industrial point sources, such as via adsorptive capture, remain scarce. Herein, we uncover the key structure–property relationships that lead to strong binding of HFCs such as fluoroform (CHF 3 ) and difluoromethane (CH 2 F 2 ) in metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) under the low pressures relevant to flue gas scrubbing. Extensive gas sorption and computational studies support that the Zr-based microporous framework MOF-801-Br or HHU-2-Br (HHU = Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf) strongly binds HFCs due to its synergistic combination of Zr-OH sites on the nodes and bromine sites on the linkers. As such, MOF-801-Br demonstrates a record-setting performance for separating CHF 3 from N 2 under dilute conditions. Our work highlights that the combination of multiple hydrogen-bonding sites in microporous MOFs represents a generalizable strategy for HFC capture, enabling their selective removal from industrial waste streams.

adsorption↗
NASA NTRS2009

Providing Oxygen for the Crew of a Lunar Outpost

Oxygen (O2) is obviously essential for human space missions, but it is important to examine all the different ways it will be used and the potential sources that it may come from. This effort will lead to storage and delivery requirements and help to determine the optimum architecture from an overall systems engineering point of view. Accounting for all the oxygen in a Lunar Outpost mission includes meeting the metabolic needs of the crew while in the surface Habitat, leakage through the Habitat or Pressurized Rover walls, recharge of the space suit backpack and emergency situations. Current plans indicate that both primary and secondary O2 bottles for the space suit will be filled to a pressure of 20.7 MPa (3000 psia). Other uses of O2 require much lower pressure. Sources of O2 at a Lunar Outpost include compressed or liquefied O2 brought along specifically for life support, scavenged O2 from the Lander propulsion system, recovered O2 from waste water or exhaled carbon dioxide and O2 mined from the moon itself. Previously, eight technology options were investigated to provide the high pressure space suit O2. High pressure O2 storage was treated as the baseline technology and compared to the other seven. The other seven were cryogenic storage followed by high pressure vaporization, scavenging liquid oxygen (LOX) from Lander followed by vaporization, LOX delivery followed by sorption compression, low pressure water electrolysis followed by mechanical compression, high pressure water electrolysis, sharing a high pressure electrolyzer with a regenerative fuel cell power system, and making use of In- Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU). This system-level analysis was conducted by comparing equivalent system mass of the eight technologies in open and closed loop life support architectures. The most promising high pressure O2 generation technologies were recommended for development. Updates and an expansion of the earlier study have been made and the results are reported in this paper. Examples of recent analyses include feasibility of recovering space suit purge O2 in a Pressurized Rover and using sub-critical LOX for primary supply while using high-pressure gaseous O2 as the secondary supply for the space-suit. Preliminary analysis on scavenging LOX from the Lander and delivering it to the Habitat has also been incorporated into this integrated lunar fluids analysis

Ewert, Michael K.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Moisture-driven CO 2 pump for direct air capture

Direct Air Capture, the chemical separation of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) from air, is considered a necessary approach to generate negative carbon emissions and in turn limit global warming, though energetic and monetary costs must continue to decline to meet the needed gigaton scale. The promise of energy-efficient and continuous carbon dioxide membrane separation has only recently been investigated with the development of facilitated chemical transport and novel electrochemically driven methods. This work demonstrates the potential for continuous pumping of CO 2 from air using commercial anion exchange membranes driven solely by a water vapor gradient. A reactive transport model that couples ionic transport with moisture sensitive bicarbonate chemistry in charged polymers, also termed moisture swing sorption, was developed alongside experimentally measured equilibrium and transport properties of CO 2 and water vapor in Fumasep FAA-3 to determine the mass transport limits of such a system. The results show that the commercial membrane is kinetically limited by the moisture sensitive chemistry, enabling a CO 2 current of 1.1 μmol/m 2 • s. In diffusion limited materials, a CO 2 pumping flux can reach 11 μmol/m 2 • s in and peak performance is expected with a dry air relative humidity around 50% pumping into a saturated water vapor permeate. In all configurations, water loss becomes the major cost in such a separation and must be managed through optimal polymer design or water recovery mechanisms. The work demonstrates the applicability of a new driving force, the evaporation of water, to meet the energetic demand of CO 2 separation from air.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Carbon dioxide-enhanced metal release from kerogen

Heavy metals released from kerogen to produced water during oil/gas extraction have caused major environmental concerns. To curtail water usage and production in an operation and to use the same process for carbon sequestration, supercritical CO 2 (scCO 2 ) has been suggested as a fracking fluid or an oil/gas recovery agent. It has been shown previously that injection of scCO 2 into a reservoir may cause several chemical and physical changes to the reservoir properties including pore surface wettability, gas sorption capacity, and transport properties. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we here demonstrate that injection of scCO 2 might lead to desorption of physically adsorbed metals from kerogen structures. This process on one hand may impact the quality of produced water. On the other hand, it may enhance metal recovery if this process is used for in-situ extraction of critical metals from shale or other organic carbon-rich formations such as coal.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
NASA NTRS1977

Removal of contaminant gases from an electrolytic urine pretreatment process

The effluent gas stream from an electrolytic urine pretreatment process was analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy and wet chemical methods to determine its composition. The major constituents were identified as: hydrogen, carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, water vapor, and chlorine. The trace impurities were chlorinated light hydrocarbons, and a number of other organic impurities in the low ppm range. Several methods of removing all of the undesirable gases to levels acceptable for return to a space cabin atmosphere were investigated experimentally. A subsystem concept comprised of the following sequential unit processes and operations was successfully demonstrated: (1) raw urine scrubbing, (2) silica gel sorption, (3) dilution with cabin air, and (4) catalytic oxidation.

Colombo, G. V.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Surface-Enhanced Raman Detection of the CO 2 Moisture Swing

The development of scalable, energy-efficient carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) capture technologies is critical for achieving net-zero emissions. Moisture swing (MS) sorbents offer a promising alternative to traditional thermal regeneration methods by enabling reversible CO 2 binding through humidity-driven ion hydrolysis. In this study, we investigate the anion speciation dynamics in two classes of MS materials─an anion-exchange resin with a bicarbonate anion and activated carbon impregnated with potassium bicarbonate salt─using both sorption measurements and in situ surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). Ni-coated Ag nanowires were employed as SERS substrates to enhance signal intensity and enable the real-time detection of carbonate (CO 3 2– ), bicarbonate (HCO 3 – ), and hydroxide (OH – ) species under controlled humidity conditions in both air and nitrogen atmospheres. The results reveal humidity-dependent interconversion between anionic species with significant spectral shifts confirming the reversible hydrolysis reactions that drive the MS mechanism. Under humid conditions, we observed the depletion of bicarbonate signals and a concurrent increase in carbonate species, consistent with moisture-induced desorption of CO 2 . With the activated carbon samples, we further observed the formation of hydroxide. These findings not only validate the mechanistic models of humidity-driven anion exchange in MS sorbents but also demonstrate the practical potential of SERS as an operando diagnostic tool for monitoring CO 2 capture media. The ability to resolve and semiquantitatively evaluate the reversible transformation of carbonate, bicarbonate, and hydroxide ions under realistic environmental conditions provides valuable insight for the rational design, performance optimization, and quality control of next-generation sorbent materials for direct air capture applications.

CO2 capture↗
DOE OSTI2024

Efficient crystal structure materials as reactive sorbent for the CO 2 and CH 4 adsorption and storage

The efficient dirubidium cobalt bis(dihydrogendiphosphate) dihydrate compound is successfully synthesized in a solution and used as a reactive sorbent for the CO 2 and CH 4 gases adsorption and storage. A crystal of this Rb 2 Co(H 2 P 2 O 7 ) 2 ·2H 2 O compound has been isolated and characterized by single X-ray diffraction analysis and was found to crystallize in the triclinic system (P$\overline{1}$) with the cell parameters (Å): 6.980(1), 7.370(1), 7.816(1), 81.74(1), 70.35(1), 86.34(1); V = 374.68(9) Å3, Z = 2. The crystal-packing consists of a three-dimensional framework made upon corners and edges sharing of [RbO 7 ], [H 2 P 2 O 7 ] and [CoO 6 ] entities, furthermore linked by a network of H-bonds. The UV–Vis spectroscopy revealed usual transitions between the ground state 4T1g and the upper levels 4T2g, 4A2g and 4T1g (P). Moreover, the CO 2 and CH 4 gases sorption measurements were successfully performed at two different temperatures (25 and 45 °C) and various pressures ranging from vacuum to 50 bar. Our results show that rate of CO 2 and CH 4 capturing was 3.10 mmol/g and 2.35 mmol/g at temperature 25 °C and pressure 50 bar, respectively. This compound showed a clear potential for CO 2 /CH 4 adsorption and storage thereby paving the way towards its exploration and adaptation for capturing and collecting carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases from the air, and their conversion into hydrocarbon fuels using existing mature technologies. We have also conducted density functional theory calculations to study the CO 2 and CH 4 adsorption properties of Rb 2 Co(H 2 P 2 O 7 ) 2 ·2H 2 O. The simulation results show enhanced adsorption of both types of molecules on the surface of the material.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Compact Hydrogen Generator

GTI Energy (GTI) is developing a One-Step Hydrogen Generation through Sorption Enhanced Reforming (SER) process that provides significant improvements in energy productivity (18% efficiency improvement), environmental performance (90% CO 2 capture and up to 98%), product yield (30% reduction in natural gas consumption), and economic benefit (reduce Levelized Cost of Hydrogen by 28%) as compared to the Steam Methane Reforming process. A 20,000 Standard Cubic Feet per Day pilot plant (or Feasibility Demonstration Unit, FDU) located at the Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC) was moved to GTI’s Des Plaines, IL facility and reconfigured to utilize an atmospheric calciner which enables CO 2 capture as a high purity product. Between operations at EERC and GTI’s facility, the pilot plant has demonstrated over 110 hours of sorbent enhanced hydrogen production at 80% or higher purity. The primary objective of this project is to advance the development of GTI’s Sorption Enhanced Reforming (SER) hydrogen production technology, known as the Compact Hydrogen Generator (CHG), to allow for a future commercial demonstration. This effort was performed over the course of 51 months. The previous effort demonstrated that previously observed catalyst deactivation can be mitigated with different catalyst substrates and operating conditions. This follow-on effort will improve both the system operational reliability, and system efficiency. Additionally, a novel approach for the calcination process will be demonstrated which can reduce the cost of carbon dioxide capture by up to 60% compared to equivalent commercial approaches.

03 NATURAL GAS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Abstract for CRADA between NETL and the AZ Board of Regents on behalf of Arizona State University

Arizona State University (ASU) and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) will collaborate on the development and scale up of sorbent composites that efficiently capture carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) directly from air under an awarded project from the Department of Energy’s Direct Air Capture (DAC) Pre-Commercialization Technology Prize. For DAC to be considered a viable technology for decarbonization, the cost of carbon removal needs to decrease below the proposed carbon tax incentive outlined in the recent Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) (Section 45 Q), which is set at $\$$180 per ton of CO 2 . Achieving this goal requires the development of a cost-effective, environmentally friendly sorbent with high CO 2 sorption capacity and efficient kinetics under DAC conditions as the overall cost of CO 2 captured is highly sensitive to factors such as sorbent cost and sorbent lifetime. ASU has developed a sorbent technology that can potentially reduce CO 2 removal costs by DAC. NETL has expertise in DAC TEA and LCA development and DAC sorbent testing. The collaboration between ASU and NETL aims to accelerate development and deployment of ASU’s technology by quantifying the performance, cost and lifecycle impacts of ASU’s technology and validating sorbent performance.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗