Field testing of modular borehole monitoring with simultaneous distributed acoustic sensing and geophone vertical seismic profiles at Citronelle, Alabama

A modular borehole monitoring concept has been implemented to provide a suite of well-based monitoring tools that can be deployed cost effectively in a flexible and robust package. The initial modular borehole monitoring system was deployed as part of a CO2 injection test operated by the Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership near Citronelle, Alabama. The Citronelle modular monitoring system transmits electrical power and signals, fibre-optic light pulses, and fluids between the surface and a reservoir. Additionally, a separate multi-conductor tubing-encapsulated line was used for borehole geophones, including a specialized clamp for casing clamping with tubing deployment. The deployment of geophones and fibre-optic cables allowed comparison testing of distributed acoustic sensing. We designed a large source effort (>64 sweeps per source point) to test fibre-optic vertical seismic profile and acquired data in 2013. The native measurement in the specific distributed acoustic sensing unit used (an iDAS from Silixa Ltd) is described as a localized strain rate. Following a processing flow of adaptive noise reduction and rebalancing the signal to dimensionless strain, improvement from repeated stacking of the source was observed. Conversion of the rebalanced strain signal to equivalent velocity units, via a scaling by local apparent velocity, allows quantitative comparison of distributed acoustic sensing and geophone data in units of velocity. We see a very good match of uncorrelated time series in both amplitude and phase, demonstrating that velocity-converted distributed acoustic sensing data can be analyzed equivalent to vertical geophones. We show that distributed acoustic sensing data, when averaged over an interval comparable to typical geophone spacing, can obtain signal-to-noise ratios of 18 dB to 24 dB below clamped geophones, a result that is variable with noise spectral amplitude because the noise characteristics are not identical. With vertical seismic profile processing, we demonstrate the effectiveness of downgoing deconvolution from the large spatial sampling of distributed acoustic sensing data, along with improved upgoing reflection quality. We conclude that the extra source effort currently needed for tubing-deployed distributed acoustic sensing vertical seismic profile, as part of a modular monitoring system, is well compensated by the extra spatial sampling and lower deployment cost as compared with conventional borehole geophones

A novel approach to CO2 capture in Fluid Catalytic Cracking-Chemical Looping Combustion

Oil refineries collectively account for about 4–6% of global CO2 emissions and Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) units are responsible for roughly 25% of these. Although post-combustion and oxy-combustion have been suggested to capture CO2 released from the regenerator of FCC units, Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) is also a potential approach. In this study, the applicability of CLC for FCC units has been explored. A refinery FCC catalyst (equilibrium catalyst-ECat) was mixed mechanically with reduced oxygen carriers; Cu, Cu2O, CoO, and Mn3O4. To identify any detrimental effects of the reduced oxygen carriers on cracking, the catalyst formulations were tested for n-hexadecane cracking using ASTM D3907-13, the standard FCC microactivity test (MAT). To investigate the combustion reactivity of coke with physically mixed oxidised oxygen carriers, CuO, Co3O4 and Mn2O3, TGA tests were conducted on a low volatile semi-anthracite Welsh coal, which has a similar elemental composition to actual FCC coke, with various oxygen carrier to coke ratios over the temperature range 750–900 °C.The results demonstrated that, whereas Cu was detrimental for cracking n-hexadecane with the ECat, Cu2O, CoO, and Mn3O4 have no significant effects on gas, liquid and coke yields, and product selectivity. Complete combustion of the model coke was achieved with CuO, Co3O4 and Mn2O3, once the stoichiometric ratio of oxygen carrier/coke was higher than 1.0 and sufficient time had been provided. These results indicate that the proposed CLC-FCC concept has promise as a new approach to CO2 capture in FCC

The mOxy-CaL Process: Integration of Membrane Separation, Partial Oxy-combustion and Calcium Looping for CO2 Capture

CO2 capture and storage (CCS) is considered as a key strategy in the short to medium term to mitigate global warming. The Calcium-Looping process, based on the reversible carbonation/calcination of CaO particles, is a promising technology for post-combustion CO2 capture because of the low cost and non-toxicity of natural CaO precursors and the minor energy penalty on the power plant in comparison with amines capture based technologies (4-9 % compared to 8-12 %). Another interesting process to reduce CO2 emissions in power plants is oxy-combustion, which is based on replacing the air used for combustion by a highly concentrated (~95 % v/v) O2 stream. This work proposes a novel process (mOxy-CaL) for post-combustion CO2 capture based on the integration of membrane separation, partial oxy-combustion and the Calcium-Looping process. An oxygenenriched air stream, which is obtained from air separation by using highly permeable polymeric membranes, is used to carry out partial oxy-combustion. The flue gas exiting partial oxy-combustion shows a CO2 concentration of ~30 % v/v (higher than 15 % v/v typical in coal power plants). After that, the flue gas is passed to the CaL process where the CO2 reacts with CaO solids according to the carbonation reaction. Thermogravimetric analysis show that the multicycle CaO conversion is enhanced as the CO2 concentration in the flue gas stream is increased. Process simulations show that the mOxy-CaL process has a high CO2 capture efficiency (~95%) with lower energy consumption per kg of CO2 avoided than previously proposed post-combustion CO2 capture technologies. Moreover, the overall system size is significantly lower that state-of-the-art CaL systems, which allows for an important reduction in the capital cost of the technology

Progress in the CO2 Capture Technologies for Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) Units—A Review

© Copyright © 2020 Güleç, Meredith and Snape. Heavy industries including cement, iron and steel, oil refining, and petrochemicals are collectively responsible for about 22% of global CO2 emissions. Among these industries, oil refineries account for 4–6%, of which typically 25–35% arise from the regenerators in Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) units. This article reviews the progress in applying CO2 capture technologies to FCC units. Post combustion and oxyfuel combustion have been investigated to mitigate CO2 emissions in FCC and, more recently, Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) has received attention. Post combustion capture can readily be deployed to the flue gas in FCC units and oxyfuel combustion, which requires air separation has been investigated in a pilot-scale unit by Petrobras (Brazil). However, in comparison, CLC offers considerably lower energy penalties. The applicability of CLC for FCC has also been experimentally investigated at a lab-scale. As a result, the studies demonstrated highly promising CO2 capture capacities for FCC with the application of post combustion (85–90%), oxyfuel combustion (90–100%) and CLC (90–96%). Therefore, the method having lowest energy penalty and CO2 avoided cost is highly important for the next generation of FCC units to optimize CO2 capture. The energy penalty was calculated as 3.1–4.2 GJ/t CO2 with an avoiding cost of 75–110 €/t CO2 for the application of post combustion capture to FCC. However, the application of oxyfuel combustion provided lower energy penalty of 1.8–2.5 GJ/t CO2, and lower CO2 avoided cost of 55–85 €/t CO2. More recently, lab-scale experiments demonstrated that the application of CLC to FCC demonstrate significant progress with an indicative much lower energy penalty of ca. 0.2 GJ/t CO2

Application of Advanced Technologies for CO2 Capture from Industrial Sources

The great majority of the research on CO2 capture worldwide is today devoted to the integration of new technologies in power plants, which are responsible for about 80% of the worldwide CO2 emission from large stationary sources. The remaining 20% are emitted from industrial sources, mainly cement production plants (~7% of the total emission), refineries (~6%) and iron and steel industry (~5%). Despite their lower overall contribution, the CO2 concentration in flue gas and the average emission per source can be higher than in power plants. Therefore, application of CO2 capture processes on these sources can be more effective and can lead to competitive cost of the CO2 avoided with respect to power plants. Furthermore, industrial CO2 capture could be an important early-opportunity application, or a facilitate demonstration of capture technology at a relative small scale or in a side stream. This paper results from a collaborative activity carried out within the Joint Programme on Carbon Capture and Storage of the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA CCS-JP) and aims at investigating the potentiality of new CO2 technologies in the application on the major industrial emitters

Sorbents for carbon dioxide capture.

Provided herein are sorbents for carbon dioxide (CO2) capture, such as from natural gas and coal-fired power plant flue gases, and uses thereof

CO2 Capture in the Cement Industry, Norcem CO2 Capture Project (Norway)

AbstractThe cement industry is a major emitter of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and contributes to around 5% of the global CO2 emissions. In Norway, Norcem is the only cement manufacturer and account for 2.5% of the national emissions, due to different industrial structure compared to other countries. Until recently, CO2 capture in Norway has focused primarily on emissions from offshore installations and gas power plants. There has been little focus on CCS in connections with land-based industrial emissions, although the number of sources is relatively large, with annual CO2 emission totalling approximately 6 million tonnes. The demand for cement and concrete is expected to increase in the coming years. Therefore, the cement industry needs to be proactive in finding solutions which reduce its climate impact.Norcem AS (Norcem) and its parent company HeidelbergCement Group (HeidelbergCement) have joint forces with the European Cement Research Academy (ECRA) to establish a small-scale test centre for studying and comparing various post-combustion CO2 capture technologies, and determining their suitability for implementation in modern cement kiln systems. The small-scale test centre has been established at Norcem's cement plant in Brevik (Norway).The project has received funding from Gassnova through the CLIMIT program. The project was launched in May 2013 and is scheduled to conclude in spring 2017 (Test Step 1). The project is being carried out on behalf of the European cement industry and managed by Norcem.The project mandate involves testing of more mature post-combustion capture technologies initially developed for power generation applications, as well as small scale technologies at an early stage of development. The project does not encompass CO2 transport and storage

Thermal Degradation and Corrosion of Amines for CO2 Capture

This report examines the thermal degradation and corrosion of various amine solvents as they apply to amine scrubbing for CO2 capture. Amines were placed in stainless steel cylinders and heated in convective ovens to simulate the stripping conditions inside a scrubbing unit. Samples were measured for remaining amine concentration, to test for degradation, and metals concentration, to estimate corrosion of the cylinder. The maximum stripping temperature of a particular compound, a measure of resistance to thermal degradation, strongly correlated with amine chain length. The linear amines studied had the following max temperatures: EDA (116 °C), PDA (124 °C), DAB (126 °C), BAE (130 °C), HMDA (140 °C), MEA (116 °C), MPA (129 °C), and DGA® (134 °C). The SHA/PZ blends had the following weighted max temperatures: AMP (143 °C), AMPD (135 °C), TRIS (130 °C), tBuAE (150 °C), PM (97 °C), and PE (129 °C). The linear amines follow initial first-order degradation curves, consistent with literature mechanisms. EDA, PDA, BAE, and AMP degraded significantly more slowly under acid conditions, suggesting that the degradation mechanisms do not incorporate CO2. Acid loaded DAB degraded at a similar rate to CO2-loaded conditions. MEA corroded 15 times faster than MPA; MAE corroded 3 times faster than EAE; DMAE-PZ corroded qualitatively faster than DMAP-PZ. These three pairs support the hypothesis that two-carbon chains corrode more than three-carbon chains. EDA corroded 40 to 80 times more than PDA according to older studies, seen in Figure 38, but more recent tests show similar corrosion rates where EDA is only 1.2 times faster (Figures 32 and 33). Corrosion and amine concentration correlate strongly; corrosion does not correlate strongly with temperature or CO2-loading. Corrosion and formate generation appear to correlate, supporting corrosion mechanisms proposed in literature.Chemical Engineerin