dream team

Aramco partners to demonstrate compact carbon capture technology for gas turbines

The technology demonstration will be used to deploy Carbon Clean’s novel CycloneCC technology to capture CO2 from natural gas turbine exhaust streams. Photo via Carbon Clean

Integrated energy and chemicals company Aramco has signed a collaboration agreement with Carbon Clean and SAMSUNG E&A in an effort to showcase new carbon capture technology.

The technology demonstration will be used to deploy Carbon Clean’s novel CycloneCC technology to capture CO2 from natural gas turbine exhaust streams containing approximately 4 percent CO2, according to Aramco.

Carbon Clean, which U.S. headquarters are located in Houston at the Ion, boasts technology that has captured nearly two million tons of carbon dioxide at almost 50 sites around the world. Aramco’s U.S. headquarters is also in Houston.

“The potential for CycloneCC in the US and Houston area is huge,” Aniruddha Sharma, chair and CEO of Carbon Clean, previously shared with EnergyCapital. “It is optimised for low to medium scale industrial emitters and recent Rice University research on the US Gulf Coast, for example, found that it is well suited to 73 percent of Gulf Coast emitters.”

The modular CycloneCC unit has a 50 percent smaller footprint compared to conventional carbon capture processes. The CycloneCC technology is estimated to reduce the total installed cost of carbon capture systems by up to 50 percent compared to conventional systems if successful. The goal is to also maintain process efficiency even at low CO2 concentrations. CycloneCC’s performance is achieved through two process intensification technologies, rotating packed beds (RPBs) and Carbon Clean’s proprietary APBS-CDRMax solvent.

“Its compact, modular design should be easily integrated with gas turbines, delivering high performance carbon capture in an industrial setting where space is typically limited,” Sharma says in a news release.

The engineering, procurement and construction of the plant will be done by SAMSUNG E&A .The unit will be installed on the sales gas compressor turbine exhaust gas stack,which can provide performance data under real-world conditions.

“Aramco and Samsung Ventures are investors in Carbon Clean, so we’re proud to deepen our relationship through this partnership,” Sharma adds. “This first-of-a-kind deployment capturing very low concentrations of CO2 is a key milestone in scaling up and commercializing CycloneCC.”

In September, Carbon Clean also announced a deal with PETRONAS CCS Solution to collaborate and evaluate Carbon Clean’s carbon capture and storage technology with Carbon Clean's CycloneCC tech. Last year, Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) selected Carbon Clean for a carbon capture project in Abu Dhabi.

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A View From HETI

James Shee, Naihao Chiang and Tony Geng have received the Department of Energy’s Early Career Award. Photos courtesy Rice and UH

Researchers at Rice University, the University of Houston and other Texas universities have been awarded the Department of Energy’s Early Career Award for their work in quantum science, AI and more.

Each professor who received the honor will be awarded $875,000 over five years to continue their work.

The Houston-area recipients include:

  • James Shee, assistant professor of chemistry at Rice University
  • Tony Geng, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice
  • Naihao Chiang, assistant professor in the department of chemistry at the University of Houston

For Shee, the award will support his work to advance a “first principles platform to simulate the quantum dynamics of chemical systems of relevance to sustainable energy consumption and generation,” according to a news release from Rice.

“Support from the Department of Energy will enable my group to pursue the ambitious quantum chemistry development required to simulate the dynamics of transition metal-based molecular computing paradigms and multi-excitonic processes in a purely ab initio manner,” Shee said in the release.

Geng is developing next-generation AI for real-time digital twins for scientific systems. Geng and his team will make microchips that function as trainable electronic dynamical systems computing through natural, continuous evolution rather than digital instructions, according to the university.

Chiang’s work at UH addresses the DOE’s Quantum Information Science priority. Chiang leads a team that develops and applies “plasmonic-enhanced near-field optical techniques” to investigate fundamental light-matter interactions at the quantum limit before applying them to emerging technologies. In addition, the team will use AI to help with data acquisition and will utilize STEM workforce development.

Dr. Joshua Burby, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Texas at Austin, and Junyeong Ahn, who is part of the University’s Texas Quantum Institute, also received early career awards for their work in superconducting and fusion technologies. See the full list of recipients from around the country here.

“The energy and creativity of early-career scientists is crucial for propelling scientific discovery forward. The Department of Energy is committed to nurturing this talent through programs like the Early Career Research Program,” Darío Gil, DOE under secretary for science, added in a release. “These awards provide essential resources and opportunities for collaboration, enabling these researchers to explore novel concepts and accelerate the development of solutions for our nation’s energy and scientific landscape.”

The DOE has also doled out funding to Houston researchers and companies in recent months through its Genesis Mission and geothermal initiatives.

Researchers from Rice, UH and Halliburton were named in July among the nearly 300 projects selected under the Trump administration's Genesis Mission, which aims to address some of the largest science and technology challenges in the country

In September, three Houston companies also received more than $45 million in funding from the DOE's Next-Generation Geothermal Field Tests and Geothermal Resource Characterization and Confirmation initiative to advance geothermal technologies and field tests. The projects were among 21 selected from around the country to receive a total of $99 million. Read more here.

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