A CLIMIT-supported research project has made progress in capture technology for industrial emission sources with low CO2 concentration.
Liquid absorbent solutions, such as amines, can be used to capture CO2 in flue gases from various types of processes. The project addressed the challenges of absorption-based CO2 capture processes, which have proven to be less effective when dealing with diluted gas streams. Emission sources with low CO2 concentration can vary widely depending on industry, technology, and emission reduction measures.
An example of low-CO2 emission sources is flue gases from the combustion of natural gas, which generally have a lower concentration compared to coal or heavy oil. – The purpose of this project was to explore and improve the efficiency of carbon capture related to flue gases with lower CO2 concentrations, and to investigate whether degradation products in the absorbent affected the capture capacity – says Svein Bekken, senior advisor at Gassnova.
The research team conducted a series of pilot and laboratory tests. A mobile testing unit (MTU) was used to investigate carbon capture processes at CO2 concentrations of 2.5 to 5%. Tests showed that even with low CO2 concentrations, it was possible to achieve capture efficiency between 85 and 95 percent. The results also indicated a significant increase in energy consumption for carbon capture at lower CO2 concentrations, which was expected from theoretical calculations.
Laboratory tests were also conducted to study the effect of degradation products on the solution’s absorption properties. The tests indicated that degradation products examined did not significantly affect the solution’s ability to absorb CO2.
This project has achieved its main objectives by demonstrating the feasibility of effective CO2 capture at lower concentrations, without simultaneously proving fundamental obstacles to the use of technology. Research also shows that some degradation products could be partially regenerated, opening up savings in solvent consumption.
– These findings represent important steps forward for plants operating with lower CO2 concentrations in the flue gases. The insights will be further utilized in the implementation of more efficient carbon capture solutions for a range of industrial applications – Svein Bekken states.
Project partner: University of South-East Norway
Project leader: Aker Carbon Capture
The aim of the MeDORA project is to develop a more durable solution for CO2 capture by combining amine-based capture technology with a membrane that removes the dissolved oxygen from the solvent.
The amine used to capture CO2 degrades over time, mainly due to contact with oxygen. The MeDORA project may provide a solution to this problem and will demonstrate that the use of membrane technology will further reduce the operating costs of carbon capture plants using amine solutions to capture CO2. – By avoiding the degradation of the amine solution, both the efficiency and lifetime of the CO2 capture technology will be improved. This will reduce costs,” says project manager Luca Ansaloni, SINTEF.
MeDORA stands for “Membrane-assisted Dissolved Oxygen Removal Apparatus”. The key challenge of the project is to remove the oxygen so effectively that amine degradation is significantly reduced. The aim is to remove 90% of the oxygen, which can lead to a 70% reduction in OPEX and a reduction in the environmental impact of the capture plant (less waste generation, reduced emissions). As a side-effect, MeDORA is also expected to achieve better quality of the CO2 product and reduce the cost of post-processing to meet CO2 transport specifications. – These are ambitious goals, but we believe they are achievable,” says Aage Stangeland, ACT coordinator at the Research Council of Norway.
The MeDORA project started just after the summer last year and is still in its early stages. It is an international collaboration with partners such as SINTEF, NTNU, Aker Carbon Capture, RWE Power, TNO and HVC. The Norwegian partners have received NOK 8 million from the CLIMIT programme through the international ACT collaboration for the period until 2026.
The development of CCS technologies, as represented by MeDORA, faces three main challenges:
MeDORA is part of the ACT programme, which accelerates and matures CCUS technologies by funding international research and innovation projects. The Research Council of Norway and Gassnova are the Norwegian representatives in ACT, and the CLIMIT programme contributes funds to ACT’s calls for proposals.
It is through initiatives such as ACT that Norwegian companies interact with leading international environments – as Aker Carbon Capture is now doing through the MeDORA project.
Kari-Lise Rørvik from Gassnova is head of the CLIMIT Secretariat. In this interview, she looks back at CLIMIT 2023 and ahead to 2024.
Among the important events in 2023, Kari-Lise highlights the CLIMIT Summit in February. Which took place at Kulturhuset Bølgen in Larvik. – After the pandemic, we finally had the opportunity to meet in person, in addition to those who chose to follow the event online. The CLIMIT Summit has become an important arena with broad international participation. This time we had the pleasure of having Kristin Halvorsen from CICERO as our moderator. Minister Terje Aasland from the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy opened the CLIMIT Summit with an overview of the government’s CCS policy. The main theme of the conference was Longship. – What connects CLIMIT to Longship now. – How CLIMIT can contribute to the development of successful CCS projects in the future. There were three intensive days of plenary presentations and CCS Speed Dates. These gave participants a 10-minute insight into different CLIMIT supported projects. This CLIMIT Summit was a great start to the year. Thanks to solid speakers on stage and a dedicated crew from Gassnova and the Research Council of Norway.
When challenged, Kari-Lise will not highlight individual projects as her favourite this year. – It is more important to take a holistic perspective and see how CLIMIT projects have developed – as for monitoring, where technology developed by CLIMIT-supported projects can be used in future CO2 storage monitoring. These projects represent arenas where industry and R&D resources jointly find sustainable solutions. CLIMIT celebrates its first 20 years in 2025 and is an increasingly important arena of collaboration between government and industry, characterized by trust and common goals.
Kari-Lise believes that learning does not end, and work is not finished, when Langskip comes into operation. – When the industry reveals new challenges and opportunities, this will be looped back to the R&D resources, which must further develop the basic research and solutions they first came up with. The CLIMIT programme must be improved in line with these needs. CCS Clusters spread along Norway will play an increasingly important role when experiences from industry and R&D are to lead CCS innovation.
Gassnovas collaboration with the Norwegian Research Council is particularly good. – Gassnova and the Council have a trusting relationship and common understanding, including through the secretariat meetings. Together we find good projects, with an inbuild reverence to our respective domains. Together, we are able to dedicate project to the relevant body of cooperation. In fact, we have 18 years’ experience of working together, says Kari-Lise.
“In December 2024, we will look back on a year in which the interaction and cooperation between industry, business, academia, authorities and granting government bodies have taken further steps forward.”
When looking back in exactly one year from now, Kari-Lise; what has happened in 2024? – The collaboration on Pilot-E with Enova, the Norwegian Research Council and Innovation Norway has been a success! We are now entering Pilot-E with extensive CCS knowledge and support via the CLIMIT programme. The Pilot-E call is aimed at projects developing solutions enabling carbon capture to be put into use by 2030. More specifically, this applies to carbon capture from large, onshore points of emissions in Norway – which also enables decreased costs and risks. Then I will continue to be hugely impressed by the many local Industrial Clusters. They enthusiastically embrace CCS with a holistic approach, deeply involved to find sustainable and cost-effective solutions.
The aCQurate project has developed methods for quantifying important operational parameters related to how to inject CO2.
The project is supported with NOK 14 million from CLIMIT.
CCS projects of the future are not only dependent on reliable and accurate monitoring. But also that monitoring takes place as cost-effectively as possible. This requires smart use of all available information, and different data sources are processed and combined as precisely as possible.
aCQurate has developed a methodology (“Joint Inversion”) for combined interpretation of several different types of geophysical data, to quantify the underlying subsoil properties as accurately as possible.
aCQurate was established in 2016 as a collaboration between SINTEF and other world-leading resources within CO2 monitoring in Canada, USA and Germany. In addition, the project had active participation from Equinor and Trondheim-based Quad Geometrics. The work largely consisted of further developing SINTEF’s software for “Joint Inversion”. The software was tested with data from two field laboratories: Ketzin in Germany and the Field Research Station in Canada. This was done to ensure that the methodology would work in full-scale storage projects. This helped us to do unique discoveries on which we want to build on, says Peder Eliasson, research leader in Geophysics at SINTEF Industri. In partnership with project manager Michael Jordan, senior researcher at SINTEF Industri, he highlights three main results:
– We have done research in CO2 monitoring for almost two decades. And have been working on the development of a progressively more complex “Joint Inversion” methodology for almost as long.
But the industry did not invest as much in CCS research then as it does today. The project had a complicated constellation of partners with representatives from the USA and Canada. Combined with the use of new field data from the Field Research Station in Calgary, where aCQurate participated. This was organized is reminiscent of today’s ACT and CETP projects, and would not have been possible then without CLIMIT, says Peder Eliasson.
SINTEF is well underway with development of methodology after aCQurate, which is now being continued via the ACT project SPARSE. This project will use the “Joint Inversion” technology for a low-cost, node-based monitoring system, which is also under development in SPARSE. Innovations related to the use of passive seismic for monitoring CO2 are also taken forward in the Green Platform project LINCCS and in FME NCCS. – These are good examples of CLIMIT’s investments accelerating major international breakthrough projects – concludes Kari-Lise Rørvik, Head of Secretariat for CLIMIT.
Representatives from academia and industry from the US and Norway gathered for two days in Washington DC.
The US Department of Energy (DOE) and the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy (MPE) have a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on CCS. The Research Council organises meetings with the DOE approximately once a year. The aim is to promote cooperation and joint projects to accelerate the development and implementation of carbon capture and storage.
The meeting is held every two years in Norway and the USA. This year the meeting was held in Washington DC from 31 October to 1 November. In addition to cooperation on capture and storage, topics such as CO2 transport, CDR (carbon dioxide removal) and hydrogen were discussed.
Norway and the US already have good cooperation through joint calls for proposals in the former ACT (Accelerating CCS Technologies) and now CETP (Clean Energy Transition Partnership). Long-term cooperation has been established in technology development at the Mongstad Technology Centre (TCM), and we are also working together through Mission Innovation on both hydrogen and CDR. Norway is a leader in BiCRS (Biomass with Carbon Removal and Storage).
A total of 70 participants were registered for the meeting. Of which 46 participated physically. Ten people from Norway participated physically, while the other 15 from Norway participated virtually until late in the evening Norwegian time. SINTEF, NORCE, Aker Solutions, Baker Hughes, TCM, Gassnova, the Research Council of Norway and MPE were physically represented at the meeting.
There is a lot of activity in this area in the US due to both the 45Q tax incentive and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), both of which were strengthened and passed in the US in 2022.
The agenda, a summary of the meeting with the main conclusions and all presentations can be found here.
Next year’s meeting will be held in Norway. We will inform you about the time and place.
Primo October 2023 the ACT consortium held a successful Workshop in Paris.
The aim of the Workshop was to ensure fruitful knowledge sharing and increase collaboration between the ACT funded projects and engage with other CCUS initiatives and stakeholders. All aligned with the overall ACT ambition to facilitate research and innovation of CO2 capture, transport, utilisation and storage technologies. ACT aims to accelerate and mature CCUS technologies by funding transnational research and innovation projects. Sixteen countries, regions and provinces are working together in ACT with the ambition to fund world class research, development and innovation that can lead to safe and cost effective CCUS technology.
Main focus during the two days in Paris was to share knowledge, experiences and results gained in the ongoing ACT3 projects and the knowledge and the ambitions of ACT4 projects. The event proved to be an excellent opportunity for generating new ideas and building new networks.
Topics were «Building industrial case for CO2 capture», «Building business cases for sustainable CO2 utilisation», «Upscaling to CO2 storage in giga-ton scale» and «Research and innovation needed for CCUS deployment».
The opening session on 4th October was conducted by Gerdi Breembroek, followed by a presentation of French Ministry of Education and representative Xavier Montagne.
By Gerdi Breembroek (.pdf)
The event shown to be an excellent opportunity to improve understanding and take advantage of the increasing momentum for CCS, CCU and CDR.
The venue in Paris was held by Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR).
The presentations from the workshop can be downloaded as soon as ACT have confirmation from the presenter to publish their slides. The list at this link will continuously be updated as soon as they hear from the presenters.
Please see the presentations at ACT Knowledge Sharing Workshop.
ACT is an international initiative to establish CO2 capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) as a tool to combat global warming.
ACT means Accelerating CCS Technologies, and the ambition of the 16 partners is to fund research and innovation projects that can lead to safe and cost-effective CCUS technology.
Since ACT’s start in 2015 participating organizations have allocated 108 million euro in funding for 39 international research, development and innovation (RD&I) projects.
The IEAGHG ExCo had its spring meeting on 17-18 May in Bali in Indonesia with Institute Technology Bandung (ITB) as host.
The meeting was both physical and virtual, with only partial Norwegian participation virtual.
IEAGHG is an observer to the IPCC’s Synthesis Report (SYR) of the 6th Assessment Report (AR6), which was published on 20 March 2023. IEAGHG has contributed several review inputs.
IEAGHG’s summer school was last held at ITB, Bandun, Indonesia in November 2022. Every year, a prize is given to the best students. This year it was a Norwegian student who received an award, Katherine Jimenez from NORCE in addition to Debanjan Chandra from Delft in the Netherlands.
A summary of GHGT-16, which was held in Lyon in October 2022, has been prepared. At the GHGT conferences, it is a tradition that a “Greenman award” is issued to people who have contributed significantly within CCS. At the GHG-16 conference in 2022, Trude Sundset, former director of Gassnova, received the “Greenman award”.
An important part of the IEAGHG meeting is the review of reports that have been published since the last time, those that are underway and the adoption of new reports.
Technical Reports (ieaghg.org)
| Study | Contractor | Report number |
| Integrating CCS in international cooperation and carbon markets under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement | Carbon Counts | 2023-01 |
| Study | Contractor | Study number | Publication date |
| Baseline Techno-Economic Assessment of Small-Scale Carbon Capture for Industrial and Power Systems | Element Energy | 58-12 | May 2023 |
| The Role of Indices in Assessing the Maturity of CCUS Technologies and Readiness for Deployment | Foresight Transitions Ltd | 58-03 | May 2023 |
| Cost-curves for Electrochemical CO2 Conversion Technologies | TNO | 59-03 | June 2023 |
| Components of CCS Infrastructure – Temporary CO2 Storage Options | TNO | 59-05 | June 2023 |
| Co-benefits of CCS Deployment in Industry | Element Energy | 60-02 | June 2023 |
| Power CCUS – Potential for Cost reductions and Improvements | Element Energy | 60-03 | June 2023 |
| Prospective Integration of Geothermal Energy with CCS | BRGM | 60-11 | June 2023 |
| SRMS-Derived Total Storage Resources and Storage Coefficients | BGS | 60-10 | July 2023 |
| Study | Contractor |
| Evolution of Conformance and Containment Risk Over Time in CO2 Storage Projects | BGS |
| Compatibility of CCUS with Net Zero Power | Wood Italiana Srl |
| Reviewing the Environmental and Public Health Implications of CO2 Migration to the Surface or Shallow Subsurface | CSIRO |
| Clean Steel: Environmental and Technoeconomic Outlook of a Disruptive Technology | Element Energy |
| International Standards and Testing for Novel Carbonaceous Building Materials | Imperial Consultants (ICON) |
| Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) for Greenhouse Gas Removals (GGRs) | Carbon Counts |
| CCUS and Public Perception (Stage 1) | Curtin University |
| Comparative analysis of electrolytic hydrogen production technologies with low-carbon (CCS-abated) hydrogen production pathways | Element Energy |
| Seal Integrity Review | CO2CRC |
| Multi-metric Analysis of Dispatchable Gas and Coal Power Plants with CCS in the Energy Storage Industry | Red Vector Ltd |
| New studies approved |
| Transport and storage cost review |
| Review of CO2 storage in basalt, risks and monitoring |
| CO2 transportation & storage availability – expected rates and options for improvements |
| CO2 fiscal metering |
| Critical study on waste-to-(low carbon) hydrogen |
The adopted studies were largely in accordance with the Norwegian prioritization.
Clean Energy Transition Platform (CETP) is a new international collaboration for research and innovation within low-carbon energy technologies, including CCS. Highlights will be shown at the upcoming annual conference 24-25 October.
Funding agencies from more than 30 countries have joined forces in CETP and are setting up joint annual calls for new research and innovation projects. CETP can fund projects with impact for the green energy transition.
All you need to know about the partnership is available at the CETP web site.
A new call for project proposals will be launched in September 2023 and the draft call text is already available here.
The CETPartnership is a multilateral and strategic partnership of national and regional research, development and innovation (RDI) programmes in European Member States and Associated Countries, aiming to boost and accelerate the energy transition and to support the implementation of the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET Plan).
You are all welcome to join the first Annual CETP Conference on 24th & 25th of October. It is designed to be a online gathering of diverse stakeholders with the common goal of fostering a global shift towards clean and sustainable energy systems.
Cement factories can reduce their CO2 emissions considerably by adopting technology for CCS. An international R&D project shows that so-called oxyfuel technology can be the solution of the future.
For several years, the Research Council and Gassnova have collaborated with actors from other countries through the ACT platform. This has resulted in several good international projects. One of the projects is called AC2OCEM, where leading research environments from several countries have studied how oxyfuel technology can provide more cost-effective CO2 capture from cement factories.
The project was led by the University of Stuttgart and has had partners from Norway, Germany, France, Helles and Switzerland. From the Norwegian side, SINTEF and NTNU have played key roles.
Oxyfuel technology means that combustion processes take place with pure oxygen instead of pure air. This will provide a simpler process for CO2 capture.
In the ACT2OCEM project, the use of oxyfuel for cement factories has been studied. Pilot-scale experiments have been carried out and this is combined with numerical modeling and simulation to describe how components in a cement factory can be designed to optimize CO2 capture.
The results from the project show that oxyfuel can be an alternative in the future for cement factories. Techno-economic analyzes and life cycle analyzes from AC2OCEM will be important tools for the design of CO2 capture facilities for cement factories.
More details about the project are available from the project’s website and the Research Council’s project bank.
Facts about the project
In AC2OCem, pilot-scale experiments, as well as analytical studies, have be performed to bring the key components of oxyfuel cement plants to TRL6 with the aim of reducing the time to market of the oxyfuel technology in the cement sector.
AC²OCem has explored the 1st generation oxyfuel technology for retrofitting, focusing on optimization of the oxyfuel calciner operation and advancing the kiln burner technology for combusting up to 100% alternative fuels with high biogenic share to bring this Bio-CCS solution to TRL6.
The experimental investigations were complemented by retrofitability analysis, considering real boundary conditions from two real cement plants. Ultimately, the techno-economic evaluations will prepare a guideline for retrofitting oxyfuel in existing cement plants.
Yet another pilot has started testing of carbon capture on real flue gas from an industrial plant. Returkraft’s waste incineration plant in Kristiansand is testing Air Products’ membrane technology.
“It will be exciting to see how Air Products membranes will manage capturing CO2 from an incineration plant,” says Jørild Svalestuen, Senior Advisor, CLIMIT, on her way to Kristiansand.
Testing Air Products commercial membranes on waste gas from an industrial facility has never been done before. The membranes are typically used to separate methane and CO2 in biogas plants, for example. It will also be an important step for Air Products if these membranes can also be used at industrial facilities to remove CO2 from off-gases. It will be particularly interesting to get knowledge on the capture rate and purity of the CO2 (permeability and selectivity) in this pilot test.
“Returkraft started testing in May and has already run the pilot for several days. Everything is going according to plan,” says project manager Ketil Bergmann, adding that they are extracting the flue gas at a temperature of around 60 0C, which seems to be going very well. “The membranes from Air Products are responding well to the flue gas and capturing of CO2 is ongoing.”
For Returkraft, this pilot project is an important part of their plan to realise a full-scale capture facility in 2030.
Returkraft will gain valuable information both on the operation of the capture facility and integration with existing production. This information can be shared with others once the testing has finished.
Returkraft’s incineration plant is located five kilometres from Kristiansand city centre and started operation in 2010 handling waste from Agder. The owners are made up of the municipalities in Agder, with Kristiansand and Vennesla being the primary owners (49%).
Returkraft handles a total annual amount of general waste and hazardous waste of approximately 130,000 tonnes. The energy from the waste incineration produces 95 GWh of electricity per year. In addition, 250 GWh
of district heating is being produced every year. Annual carbon emissions are around 140-150,000 tonnes of with approximately 55% is biogenic CO2.
Kristiansand Municipality has a goal of reducing its carbon emission by 80% by 2030. To meet this goal, Kristiansand’s largest emissions at source must contribute. Returkraft’s plant has 44 MW, of which 99% of the district heating goes to the citizens of Kristiansand. An advantage of this plant is that it will not be directly affected by being connected to a capture facility. There is already a possibility to provide a capture facility with both heat energy and cooling.
The piloting of CO2 capture at Returkraft could influence how future plants are built. “It is really great,” says Jørild, “that CLIMIT support contribute to reduction of risks and carbon capture costs on the way to full scale CCS. We also want CLIMIT projects to share their experiences and knowledge as far as possible.” Returkraft and the largest waste-to-energy plants in Norway have taken the lead on this and are collaborating to make CCS a reality by sharing their respective experiences and knowledge (KAN – Klimakur for Avfallsforbrenning i Norge (Climate cure for waste incineration in Norway)).
A part of the American company Air Products and Chemicals Inc. (APCI) and Air Products Prism Membranes (APPM), one of the world’s largest manufacturers of membranes.
Air Products is a Kristiansand-based company with long experience in the production of air separation units based on membrane technology. The company was originally founded to meet the needs for inert gas systems for ships but has more recently developed the technology for other uses, such as carbon separation (cf. pilot studies with NTNU’s CO2 membrane technology licenced to Air Products at Norcem, Brevik). Carbon capture is currently one of Air Products focus areas using membrane qualities Air Products has long experience with. Air Products in the United States are developing new membrane-based capture concepts.
Ketil Bergmann is clear that the ball must get rolling if they are to achieve their goal of operating a capture facility by 2030. There is already ongoing work to get the next phase of the plan towards 2030 in place. Bergmann emphasises that the KAN cooperation is helpful. KAN consists of the five largest waste-to-energy plants in Norway. All having their own ongoing CCUS projects and by working together they will find the best possible frameworks and solutions for CCS on waste-to-energy.
