Episode 23 | Buckeye Buckshot | Ohio State
Nearly 10 years ago, I joined the Clean Coal Technology Foundation of Texas, whose primary mission was to advance the deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. It would, and still will, do more for carbon mitigation than any other effort.
However, the primary challenge with the technology is the "parasitic load," the amount of energy required to chemically separate, compress, store, and transport CO2 from a power plant. The parasitic load is often cited around 30%, meaning for every three power plants, a fourth would have to be built just to mitigate CO2. The conversations quickly became non-starters.
We were convinced there was a better way. Oxy combustion, or the process of burning fossil fuel with Oxygen instead of pure air, prevents the formation of nitrogen oxide (because air is mostly nitrogen), and creates a purer stream of CO2 for capture. This process can also carry an energy penalty from running an air-stripper, but not nearly as much as post-combustion carbon capture.
Enter Chemical Looping, the process by which metal oxides carry oxygen to the fossil fuels, eliminating the need for a pure oxygen environment. As far as I can tell, this is the most energy-efficient means of capturing carbon I have ever seen.
I met today's guest, OSU assistant research professor Dr. Andrew Tong, while researching a flue gas solution for work. When I noticed posters describing the research into chemical looping with carbon capture, I knew we had to get the conversation on the record.
Andrew is part of the research team led by Dr. L.S. Fan, one of the preeminent authorities on chemical looping. Through partnerships with Department of Energy and Babcock & Wilcox, OSU has been able to successfully demonstrated carbpon capture using this method on all types of fossil feedstocks: biomass, natural gas, petroleum coke, and all grades of coal. What's more, the "buckshot" proved to be extremely resilient, exchanging oxygen thousands of times (over six months if commercial).
The technology is one of many solutions that could finally make CO2 capture an efficient and cost effective solution.
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