Chemical Engineering June 2023 - 5

Chementator
Pilot trials for a carbon-capture process that
combines VPSA and MOFs
T
his summer, pilot trials will begin at a
Buzzi Unicem S.p.A. (Casale Monferrato,
Italy; www.buzziunicem.com)
cement plant in Monselice, Italy,
which will perform field tests of a new carboncapture
process developed by Nuada, the
new tradename of MOF Technologies Ltd.
(Belfast, Northern Ireland; www.nuadaco2.
com). The pilot project is supported by the
Global Cement and Concrete Assn. (GCCA;
London, U.K.; www.gccassociation.org) and
leading cement companies as part of GCCA's
Innovandi " Open Challenge " (see Chem.
Eng., June 2022, p. 9) that targets " net zero "
CO2 emissions by 2050.
Nuada engineered a carbon-capture process
that combines solid, metal-organic
framework (MOF) adsorbents with proven
vacuum-pressure-swing adsorption (VPSA)
- a " heatless " and solvent-free process,
explains business development manager
Stratos Stavrakakis. " This represents a step
change in innovation and yields an ultraenergy-efficient
system that reduces the energy
penalty by up to 80% compared to incumbent
solutions, " he says. In the process
(diagram), cooled fluegas is passed through
a packed-bed column where the
CO2 is selectively adsorbed at a
slightly elevated ambient temperature
and pressure. When the
MOF filter is loaded, the fluegas
is directed to another parallel
bed, while the captured CO2 is
released under vacuum from the
saturated bed. At bench scale,
the process has been demonstrated
to recover more than 90%
CO2 from fluegas, generating a
" Clean "
fluegas
CO2-rich stream of 95+% purity.
Nuada manufactures its carbon-capture
MOFs in house through a low-cost mechanochemical
process, and " we can cover any
requirements for replacing filters, " Stavrakakis
says. Extensive testing on the company's
prototype has shown no degradation of the
MOFs over two years, so the lifetime is believed
to be much longer than this, he adds.
Nuada is also actively discussing demonstration
opportunities with other sectors,
such as steelmaking, waste-to-energy and
" blue " hydrogen production, to verify the
technology's in-field performance for treating
various offgas streams, says Stavrakakis.
The company is offering a tailored pilot
program through " Nuada Scout. " This service
includes transport, installation, operation,
testing and decommissioning of a pilot
plant configured to site-specific fluegas, he
explains. Nuada Scout provides a prefabricated
containerized plant with core unit operations
needed to evaluate carbon capture
at 1 metric ton per day (m.t./d), with scope
to
bolt-on
post-treatment
" Clean " fluegas
VPSA
unit
+
MOF
filter
Fluegas
Vacuum
Fluegas cooler
Ligand-based separation method for
rare earth elements
are-earth elements (REEs) are difficult
to separate because of their
similar properties, so conventional
methods are often costly and generate
significant amounts of waste. Researchers
at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
(ORNL; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; www.ornl.
gov) have developed a new technique using
two ligands with contrasting selectivities that
suggests a path to more cost-effective and
environmentally responsible separations.
The ORNL team reports a " tug-of-war "
strategy that employs the natural separation
of oil-water mixtures. The method uses a lipophilic
ligand that has an affinity for heavier
REEs, and a hydrophilic ligand with an affinity
for lighter REEs. Specifically, a new, waCHEMICAL
ENGINEERING WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
R
ter-soluble bis-lactam-1,10-phenanthroline
ligand with affinity for light lanthanides (from
lanthanum to neodymium on the periodic
table)
is
paired with an oil-soluble
diglycoamide
that selectively binds the heaviest
lanthanides, such as holmium and lutetium.
The two-ligand strategy " yields a quantitative
separation of the lightest and heaviest
lanthanides, enabling efficient separation of
the neighboring lanthanides in between, " (for
example, from samarium to dysprosium),
the ORNL researchers say.
" Our approach is
flexible and can be
tailored to select specific lanthanides for
a faster route to separating adjacent elements, "
says ORNL scientist Santa Jansone-Popova.
JUNE
2023
Captured CO2
packages
for
full carbon capture, utilization and storage
(CCUS) assessments, Stavrakakis says.
Nuada
Edited by:
Gerald Ondrey
USING WASTE HEAT
To convert large amounts
of waste heat into electricity
as
efficiently as
Liquefaction
possible, turbines with a
high degree of efficiency
are required that work
with a special conversion
process - the organic
Rankine cycle (ORC).
In a pilot project for the
development of such a
turbine, the Center of Energy
Technology (ZET) of
the University of Bayreuth
(www.uni-bayreuth.de)
is cooperating with TGM
Kanis Turbinen GmbH
(Nuremberg, both Germany;
www.tgmkanis.
com). The Bavarian State
Ministry of Economic Affairs,
Regional Development
and Energy is supporting
the three-year,
€1.7-million project.
Today, substantial heat
generated by industrial
production processes is
still released into the environment,
because the
temperature is too low
(typically between 100
and 500°C) for utilization.
The waste heat can
therefore only be con
the help of the organic
Rankine cycle (ORC),
which uses an organic
fluid with a low boiling
point instead of water.
In this way, turbines can
be used efficiently to
generate electricity even
below 300°C.
In this project, the researchers
will investigate
an ORC using siloxanes
as the working fluids, in
combination with a test
rig turbine (scalable up to
10 MWel) to be installed
at the site of TGM Kanis.
The goal is to increase
the isentropic efficiency
of the ORC turbine compared
to existing commercial
products.
CAT SCREENING
When developing potential
heterogeneous
catalysts, determining
(Continues on p. 6)
5
http://www.buzziunicem.com http://www.nuadaco2.com http://www.nuadaco2.com http://www.gccassociation.org http://www.uni-bayreuth.de http://www.tgmkanis.com http://www.tgmkanis.com http://www.ornl.gov http://www.ornl.gov http://WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
Chemical Engineering June 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering June 2023
