Launch of the European Octavius Research Project

RUEIL-MALMAISON, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On 13 and 14 March this year, the Octavius project dedicated to post-combustion CO₂ capture has been launched at IFPEN (France). The main challenge of the project is to significantly increase the energy efficiency of the capture technologies in order to reduce its costs.

The objectives are as follows:

• to prepare for the first CO₂ capture and storage (CCS) demonstrators on a thermal power plant scale, implementing 1^rst generation CO₂ capture processes using amine-type solvents. Three CO₂ capture pilot units – the Cato pilot unit in Maasvlakte (Netherlands), the Enel pilot unit in Brindisi (Italy) and the EnBW pilot unit in Heilbronn (Germany) – will be used to test the operability and flexibility of 1^rst generation processes.
• to demonstrate the DMX^TM 2^nd generation post-combustion capture process resulting from IFPEN research on an industrial scale. This demonstration will be conducted on the Enel pilot unit, capable of capturing up to 2.25 tCO₂/h on coal combustion flue gases.

Coordinated by IFPEN, the project brings together 16 other partners: TNO, Sintef, NTNU, Ineris, DTU, TUHH, E.ON, EnBW, Doosan Power Systems, Enel, Laborelec (GDFSuez), EDF, Prosernat,TIPS, EcoMetrix and Eskom.

Scheduled to last 5 years, Octavius has a budget of €13.5 million, €8 million of which will be provided by the European Commission.

1^rst generation capture processes use alkanolamines. Commercially available, alkanolamine based processes have been proposed for the ROAD and Porto Tolle CCS demonstration projects. The Octavius project will provide the most recent information required for full-scale implementation of these processes, with respect to atmospheric emissions, operability, flexibility and integration.

The DMX^TM process developed by IFPEN uses a demixing solvent capable of cutting the energy consumption for solvent regeneration by almost 40%, reducing it until 2.3 GJ per metric ton of CO₂ captured, in comparison with 3.7 GJ/tCO₂ for a standard process using a solution containing 30% by weight of MonoEthanolAmine. The first technical and economic assessments have demonstrated that the DMX^TM method applied to CO₂ capture on a coal-fired thermal power plant reduces the energy penalty by 2 points, thereby cutting the costs associated with CO₂ capture by 20%.