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At the coal face15 June 2009 Professor Paul Webley
Small, perfectly round, and otherwise unremarkable, these granules (pictured) are adsorbents, materials that attract and hold gases or liquids on their surface. They have been around for decades, in tiny packets of silica gel (often found in consumer packaging) and household air purifiers. But when it came to using adsorbents for larger industrial purposes - for example to remove carbon dioxide from power station emissions - Professor Paul Webley and his team at the School of Chemical Engineering were flatly told by colleagues it couldn't be done. "Why? Well, simply because they had never tried it," he said. It has taken five years of research and bench-top refinement, but in May the Monash team will have field-trialed the world's first carbon capture plant using adsorption. It is one of several pilot plants being installed at the 1675 megawatt Hazelwood power station in Victoria's Latrobe Valley, Australia's largest single emitter of climate-changing greenhouse gases. The work is being undertaken as part of the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC), one of the world's leading collaborative research organisations focused on carbon dioxide capture and geological sequestration. Like all good engineering, the Monash University design is simple. Low-pressure flue gas is passed through one of several beds of adsorbent material where the carbon dioxide is retained by the granules. A simple drop in gas pressure leads to desorption, the gas is released and siphoned off for other industrial uses or for underground storage. The granules themselves can be re-used immediately and the only moving parts are vacuum pumps and valves. But there are challenges to commercial implementation. The small Monash test plant can remove a tonne of carbon dioxide a day, but the power station produces many thousands more. Regardless, Professor Webley said the potential was enormous. "Our application is unique. If we can get it right in the field, it will provide a simple sustainable carbon capture technique that could be used in all kinds of industrial applications across the world." For more information visit the C02CRC website. |