Project title:

Demonstration of Gas Switching Technology for Accelerated Scale-up of Pressurized Chemical Looping Applications, GaSTech

Project coordinator

SINTEF Materials and Chemistry

Project leader

Shahriar Amini

Project periode

September 2017 - September 2020

Support from ACT

€  1.65 M

Web site

https://www.sintef.no/gastech-act

Summary

Gas switching technology offers a promising alternative to chemical looping applications for highly efficient power or hydrogen production with integrated CO2 capture. Oxygen production for oxyfuel CO2 capture is also possible. In order to maximize efficiency, these processes need to operate at elevated pressures, creating serious scale-up challenges for interconnected chemical looping reactors. Gas switching reactors, on the other hand, are simple standalone units that can be scaled up and pressurized without facing unforeseen challenges.

The GaSTech project will accelerate the development of gas switching technologies by developing a business case for further technology scale-up. The business case will have two main components: 1) lab-scale demonstration (TRL 4) of gas switching reactor concepts and 2) large-scale technology implementation studies to evaluate techno-economic feasibility of process concepts incorporating gas switching reactors.

Specialized partners will be responsible for each individual project component. Experimental demonstration will utilize an existing reactor at NTNU that has been successfully used for demonstration of pressurized gas switching combustion. ETH will select and pre-test the oxygen carrier materials to be manufactured by ESAM for demonstration purposes. SINTEF will utilize existing large-scale gas switching reactor models to provide input to process simulations done by TUHH and UPM. Using this data, UBB will carry out economic assessments for the different processes and HAYAT will assess the business case.

GaSTech will investigate four gas switching technologies: combustion, reforming, water splitting and oxygen production. The clear similarities between these processes will allow for efficient parallel assessment in a single project. In this way, GaSTech will maximize the likelihood of developing the compelling business case required for an immediate follow-up project at TRL 6.

Presentations

Presentation shown at the ACT Knowledge Sharing Workshop 24 October 2017