Research at Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage

Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage (SCCS) based in Edinburgh has expanded its remit to include capture plant engineering and CO2 separation technologies, in addition to the energy systems and geological storage R&D for which the centre for CCS technologies was previously renowned.

Most of the costs and additional energy consumption required for carbon capture and storage are incurred in the processes separating carbon dioxide from the flue gas and its subsequent compression. In response, the Edinburgh based SCCS has been building their expertise in this area. Now moving into its second phase, SCCS brings together engineers, geologists, geophysicists, chemists, economists and technology analysts and social scientists as dedicated researchers in the field of CCS.

Professors Jon Gibbins and Stefano Brandani have been recruited to the centre from leading London universities and, along with their research groups, focus on carbon capture, power plant engineering and economics, and adsorbent technologies.

Jon Gibbins has worked on coal and biomass gasification and combustion for over 25 years, firstly at Foster Wheeler and then Imperial College London. He now holds the position of Professor of Power Plant Engineering at Edinburgh and the role of Principal Investigator for the UK Carbon Capture and Storage Community. His group’s work centres on research, teaching, and policy advice for Carbon Capture and Storage with fossil fuels and biomass, plus the use of low-carbon electricity, in the UK, China and other countries, directed towards developing effective global strategies for avoiding dangerous climate change. The strategy behind Jon’s CCS activities is helping to deliver the combination of technical, policy and economic advances that are required to progress CCS rapidly to the stage where it can make an effective contribution to global climate change mitigation. His work already helped to get post-combustion established as a competitive option for CO2 emission reductions from coal power plants. International guidelines for post-combustion capture-ready plants, drawn up with his participation, now form part of the G8 programme to deploy CCS globally. Joining Jon from Imperial College is Dr Mathieu Lucquiaud, specialising in the design of power cycle and steam turbines for both CO2 capture-ready coal and gas plants, including technology upgradeability of post-combustion capture systems. The third group member is Dr Hannah Chalmers, whose work combines improving the technical understanding of CO2 capture technologies for power plants, with the development of economic models that can be used to identify operating patterns to maximise value of power plant operating with CO2 capture. The Gibbins’ group hosts students working on dynamic modelling of power plants with operational CCS, and is establishing a brand new laboratory to verify and enhance the groups’ capture plant models.

Professor Stefano Brandani joined the Institute for Materials and Processes at Edinburgh in 2007 from his post at University College London, where in 1999 he previously established the Centre for CO2 Technology. Stefano and his group now have been very successful in building a research portfolio in next generation carbon capture technologies, based on the use of novel nanoporous materials for adsorption and membrane processes. Major grants include the EPSRC Science and Innovation Award on Carbon Capture from Power Plant and Atmosphere, in collaboration with Geosciences and Heriot-Watt University, the EPSRC consortium on Innovative Gas Separations for Carbon Capture led by Edinburgh with 5 collaborating institutions across the UK, and the US Department of Energy funded project on Carbon Dioxide Removal from Flue Gas Using Microporous Metal Organic Frameworks. The group’s laboratory hosts a range of experimental apparatus designed for exploring new types of adsorbents; screening novel microporous new materials; and rapid pressure cycling to predict process performance of the best candidates materials. Brandani's work focuses on so-called second-generation solutions. “We are confident that these solutions work but we need to improve them,” says Brandani. “We will need a significant research effort to optimise first-generation amine-based systems, and also get them working on a much larger scale. In parallel, we must develop second- and third-generation solutions to address the limitations of the first generation.” Stefano’s group have also developed a semi-automated measuring device and a set of numerical tools to analyse the properties of various nanoporous materials, and a novel type of apparatus that will be used to “characterise the performance of adsorption columns with several grams of solid material.” The new technique makes it possible to screen more materials and more variants than ever before. “We are working on novel adsorbents and processes, to develop the underpinning science for these technologies, and all of this takes time and money” says Brandani. We can only test so many new materials a day, but we must do it if more efficient capture methods are to be established.” The experimental data is used to validate complex dynamic models that can be used to predict the behaviour of carbon capture processes under variable load conditions and at start-up. Dr Hyunwoong Ahn has recently joined the group from SK Energy, South Korea’s largest refinery company, adding to the team’s significant experience in process plant technology.

SCCS is the largest carbon storage grouping in the UK, comprising in excess of 65 researchers in the University of Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt University and the British Geological Survey. SCCS is unique in its connected strength across the full CCS chain and unique in its biochar capability.