Thermo-fluid engineering for carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS)

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• The impact of hydrocarbon fuel use on the environment, and the role of low-carbon energy technology in avoiding these impacts
• Modelling approaches for flows occurring in energy applications.
• Technical systems for achieving low-carbon energy production.
• Physical phenomena associated with real fluid mixtures, heat and mass transfer, chemicallyreactive flows, multi-phase flow, and porous media flow.

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Evaluate fluid properties and flow properties
• Apply engineering analysis to thermo-fluid processes found in real energy technology applications.
• Identify suitable models for fluid properties and processes across the applications studied in this module

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Perform analytical and numerical analysis in order to identify and optimise prospective energy technologies.
• Design a carbon capture reactor suitable for extracting 90% CO2 from a power plant.

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Communicate in a clear, structured and efficient manner.
• Present technical and economic assessments of investment options, accounting for uncertainty.

Week 1: Introduction to carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS)

1.Introduction: Overview of current energy production and its current economic, environmental and social impact, global markets for fuel, energy and carbon; the role CCUS has to play

2.Overview of CCUS technologies: different components of the CCUS chain; current status of CCUS technologies and challenges for deployment

3.Tutorial 1: Forms of low-carbon technologies: introduction to the different forms of low-carbon technologies and low-carbon technology exercise

Week 2: Introduction to multiphase flows

4.Gas-particle systems: regimes of multi-phase flow, phenomenology, dense and dilute particle flows, phase coupling, minimum fluidisation and bubbling velocity.

5.Gas-liquid systems: introduction to liquid break up and spray formation, PDFs, moments of the PDF

6.Tutorial 2: Exercises relating to multiphase flows

Week 3: Reaction mechanisms

7.Homogeneous and Heterogeneous reactions: enthalpy of formation, chemical reactions and reaction kinetics, intra-particle diffusion, mass and heat transport for single particles

8.Film theory for gas-liquid systems: Types of reactors, Henry’s Law, Two-film model, first-order and second order reactions

9.Tutorial 3: Reaction mechanism exercises

Week 4: CO2 production and separation

10.Post-combustion – absorption technologies: chemical absorption; types of alkanolamines; technological advances and limitations; gas-liquid contactors

11.Post-combustion – sorbents and membranes: solid physical adsorption; pressure swing adsorption (PSA) and temperature swing adsorption (TSA); types of adsorbents including zeolites, MOFs; membrane gas absorption; typical membrane-module configurations

12.Tutorial 4: CO2 Absorber design

Week 5: CO2 production and separation

13.Pre-combustion: integrated gasification combined cycle, synthesis gas production, water-gas-shift reaction; types of separation technologies; advantages and disadvantages

14.Oxy-fuel technologies: cryogenic air separation; reactor configuration; chemical looping technologies; types of oxygen carriers

15.Tutorial 5: Capture technologies exercises

Week 6: CO2 storage in porous reservoirs

16.Structure of porous media: Micro- and macroscopic descriptions. Darcy’s law. Permeability. Fracturing. Non-Darcy behaviour.

17.Flows through porous media: Full set of equation for an isothermal flow through porous media. Initial and boundary conditions. Radial flow.

18.Tutorial 6: Porous flow exercises

Week 7: CO2 storage in porous reservoirs

19.Anisotropy of permeability: Averaging permeabilities. Layered reservoir without crossflow, composite reservoir

20.Capillary pressure: Pore-level modelling. Meniscus rise in a capillary.

21.Tutorial 7: Extraction exercises

Week 8: CO2 storage in porous reservoirs

22.Multiphase flow through porous media: Diffusion in porous media. Multiphase flows. Extension of Darcy’s law. Relative permeabilities. Capillary curve. Mass balance equation and complete model.

23.CO2 sequestration in geological reservoirs: Properties of CO2 in supercritical state. Combination of CO2 sequestration with EOR.

24.Tutorial 8: EOR mock exam questions

Week 9: CO2 utilisation

25.CO2-based fuels: Current and future uses of CO2; Fischer-Tropsch synthesis; fundamentals of catalysis; methane and methanol production

26.CO2-based chemicals: overview of mineral carbonation; CO2-based formic acid formation, ethylene and ethanol production; polymer production; challenges surrounding the commercialisation of CO2-based products; life-cycle analysis of the end-use of CO2-based products

27.Tutorial 9: Utilisation exercises

Week 10: Risks and Economics

28.Economics of CCUS: importance of cost estimates; building cost estimates; defining plant and cost assumptions; sources of cost estimates; example cost estimates; levelised cost of electricity; cost of CO2 avoided

29.Wider awareness of CCUS: CCUS policy indicators, public perception of CCUS

30.Tutorial 10: Economics exercises

Week 11: Revision and coursework review

31.Revision session: Thermofluids for CO2 capture and utilisation mock exam

32.Revision session: Thermofluids for CO2 capture and utilisation mock exam - solutions

33.Revision session: CO2 storage - mock exam

Week 12: Revision and coursework review

34.Coursework review: Individual feedback on coursework

35.Coursework review: Individual feedback on coursework

36.Revision session: CO2 storage - mock exam solutions

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include

• Lectures including examples, with lecture hand-outs provided.
• Set example questions are supported by group problem solving sessions.
• Mock exam test run at one of the revision sessions.

Learning activities include

• Directed reading.
• Group and individual work on examples.
• Coursework project: to produce a short report.

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

J. Bear. Theory and Applications of Transport in Porous Media. Springer.

S. K. Friedlander, Smoke, Dust and Haze (2000). Fundamentals of Aerosol Dynamics. Oxford University Press.

W.F. Hughes, J.A. Brighton (1999). Schaum's outline of theory and problems of fluid dynamics. New York: McGraw Hill.

D.Gidaspow (1994). Multiphase Flow and Fluidization. Elsevier Inc, Academic Press.

J.S. Archer and C.G. Wall (1986). Petroleum engineering: principles and practice. Graham and Trotam.

R.F. Probstein (1989). Physicochemical Hydrodynamics. Butterworths.

Cengel Y.A., Boles M.A. Thermodynamics. An engineering approach. McGraw Hil.

Assessment strategy

2 Hour written exam - 65%

Carbon capture and storage project - 35%

Feedback method : Feedback document on exam performance made available on module blackboard; this document will also be available to subsequent years to help with learning and revision.

Individual consultations take place with both lecturers during a double lecture slot to go through the report and assess.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: External