Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage

CO₂ can be captured either directly from the atmosphere (Direct Air Carbon Capture) or from the emissions produced by industrial manufacturing, especially chemical plants, steel plants, oil and gas refineries, cements plants and power generation plants using various carbon capture processes such as chemical absorption, physical separation which is based on absorption, adsorption and cryogenic separation, membrane separation, chemical looping.

Carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies enable various industries by utilising the captured carbon as:

• Raw material for chemical manufacturing and building materials
• Fuels for industry
• Fertilizer in agriculture
• Gases for beverages
• Gases in the medical industry
• Gas injection for enhanced oil recovery in reservoirs

Excess carbon can be permanently stored onshore or offshore in depleted pockets. Most of the carbon capture technologies that are in use today, use scalable vacuum pump solutions in their process.

Edwards vacuum solutions have been successfully installed in various carbon capture technologies worldwide owing to its scalability from pilot plant to full scale production sites providing critical support for successful installations. Edwards vacuum solutions offer many solutions for sustainable manufacturing such as:

• Robust and reliable operation with broad vacuum product portfolio
• Technologies with various materials of construction
• Energy efficiency and lower cost of ownership
• Global sales and service footprint
• Applications expertise

This method involves the capture of CO₂ directly from the ambient air. Methods include Solid DAC using solid adsorbents, Liquid DAC using an aqueous solution or Cryogenic DAC all are based on ambient air passing through filters that contain specially engineered chemicals that concentrate and absorb CO₂. Vacuum pumps and heat are used to release CO₂ which is then captured and stored, either for direct use or transported to underground storage.

Edwards reliable liquid ring vacuum pump technology have been successfully used for direct air carbon capture processes. An example is our LR series of liquid ring vacuum pumps which are available in various materials of construction, tolerant of particulates and operate with minimal maintenance and noise, making them ideal for continuous operations.

Pre-combustion carbon capture involves removing CO₂ from a gas mixture through the upstream treatment of fossil fuels prior to the combustion process. This process is particularly suited for incineration plants with Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC). Pre-combustion involves gasification and partial oxidisation (IGCC) of the fuel to produce CO₂ and Hydrogen. Using physical absorption processes, the CO₂ is isolated using a separator.

Edwards intelligent dry vacuum pumps such as the GXS dry screw vacuum pumps and EH mechanical boosters can be used in the pre-combustion process to create the pressure difference in the membrane system to separate CO₂ out of H₂ from the gas mixture. With advanced control mechanism, modular and scalable concept, the dry pump solutions offers maximum flexibility.

Post combustion carbon capture technology is one of the most established CCUS technology today. After the combustion of fossil fuels, CO₂ is captured and separated from the resultant flue gas. Edwards offers various solutions for Flue Gas Desulphurization (FGD) as well as vacuum solutions for retrofit CO₂ capture technology. Vacuum pumps are used for vacuum filtration and dewatering of gypsum in FGD process and at a later stage to separate the CO₂ from the solvent or sorbent.

Edwards EDS chemical dry screw vacuum pumps can handle increasingly complex chemical vapours and solvents vapours safely at a low cost of ownership. In addition, Edwards custom engineered products such as our steam ejector vacuum systems offer improved energy-efficiency and the capability to handle high vapour loads without the risk of cavitation. 

Bio-Energy Carbon Capture and Storage utilises biomass to capture and store carbon from atmosphere which is then burned to harvest the energy. In this process CO₂ is captured and sequestered in landfill or used for chemical production.

Edwards offers large capacity LR series of liquid ring vacuum pumps and HR series of liquid ring vacuum pumps available in stainless steel construction and ideal for carbon capture in this process.