Generic interface development and benchmarking of carbon dioxide reduction processes

The world’s global energy demand is growing. The International Energy Agency (IEA) affirms that despite the technological advances and international efforts, the carbon need has barely changed over the past twenty years. In order to reduce the climate change, carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology deployment is needed.  Post-combustion capture is one of the most feasible CCS technologies. It can be retrofitted to existing power plants, but also steel industry, cement production, refining, and biochemical industry, etc

 DTU is actively participating in the OCTAVIUS (Optimization of CO2 Capture Technology Allowing Verification and Implementation at Utility Scale) project funded under the 7th EU framework program for research (FP7). OCTAVIUS will prepare for the first CCS demonstrators on a thermal power plant scale, implementing first generation CO2 capture processes using amine-type solvents. 

The intention of this project is to conceive and design a standardized approach for CO2 capture modeling. Interfaces for interoperability of various simulators, e.g. Aspen Plus, COFE, gPROMS, 3rd party and in-house models will be defined and tested. The developed technology allows for the plant wide simulation and optimization of both power and CO2 capture technologies in an integrated manner.

Moreover, a dynamic model of the CO2 post-combustion capture process will be developed in order to investigate the column behavior at process transition such as load changes, process disturbances, etc. Special attention will be given to improvement of process design and to development of control strategies.  

The present PhD project will demonstrate the value of computational science for improvement of process design, dynamic modeling, and advanced control structure development. A better technical understanding will diminish the investment risk which will facilitate the construction of demonstration plants.

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Kaj Thomsen: kth@kt.dtu.dk

Co-supervisor: Ass. Prof. Philip Loldrup Fosbøl, plf@kt.dtu.dk

Co-supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Nicolas von Solms, nvs@kt.dtu.dk

Co-supervisor: Assoc. Prof. John Bagterp Jørgensen, jbj@imm.dtu.dk

Contact

Kaj Thomsen
Emeritus
DTU Chemical Engineering