Carbon Capturing and Storage

Research plan:
Our plan is to determine the maximum solubility of olivine in basic or acidic
solvent. We also want to determine the maximum storage and capturing capacity of CO2. Further
to check the sustainability of captured carbon and accelerate natural carbon capturing process.

Objectives:
To capture and store carbon dioxide in form of carbonates into olivine.

Introduction:
Mineral carbonation is based on binding CO2 to calcium or magnesium oxides
bearing materials. The reaction is thermodynamically favored and exothermic. The reaction
products, mainly calcium or magnesium carbonates and silica, are naturally occurring,
environmentally benign, stable solid materials that would provide storage capacity on a
geological time scale. Suitable calcium and magnesium oxide bearing materials are silicate rocks
or alkaline industrial residues, the former being abundant but more difficult to access and the
latter scarcer but easily available. The reaction of gaseous carbon dioxide with solid metal oxide
bearing materials is in most cases too slow to be practical, only refined materials like pure metal
oxides and hydroxides, which are very rare in nature and only available in industrial alkaline
wastes, could be used for it.

It is therefore necessary to first extract the metal oxide from silicate

minerals. This can be achieved by dissolving the mineral in aqueous solutions, forming metal
ions which then can react with dissolved carbon dioxide created by dissolving gaseous CO2 at
sufficient pressure. The product, e.g. magnesium carbonate, precipitates along by-products such
as silica and has to be collected and separated by filtration and drying from the solution and
unreacted source material. The overall reaction rate, which is thought to be constrained by the
dissolution rate of the metal oxide bearing material, can be speed up by either mechanical or
thermal pre-treatment of the silicates or even adding solution additives acting as catalysts.
Recent case studies have demonstrated the applicability of the process at the laboratory scale;
however without providing a fully closed carbonation process, it is difficult to compare
performance and feasibility carried out mineral carbonation using magnesium and
calcium silicate at temperatures between 100-185°C and pressures between 85-150 bar.

In all
cases, except, additives such as NaHCO3 and NaCl have been used to enhance the overall
reaction. The best case studied so far is the wet carbonation of the natural silicate olivine at high
temperature and under high CO2 pressure, which costs between 50 and 100 US$/tCO2 stored
and translates into a 30- 50% energy penalty on the original power plant.
 Carbon Capturing and Storage
The aim of this project
is to find operating conditions in terms of thermodynamic parameters and solution additives to be
used that allow to reduce as much as possible the cost and energy penalty mentioned above. In
this study, the effects of temperature, pH and CO2 partial pressure on the
dissolution rate of olivine have been investigated both experimentally and theoretically. The
carbonate precipitation for the H2O-CO2-Na2CO3-MgCl2 system under different operating
conditions, temperature, CO2 partial pressure, ion ratio [Mg2+]/[CO32-], and duration of the
experiment) has been investigated.

Research background:
Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) is considered as one of
the main options for reducing atmospheric emissions of CO2 from human activities. This
concept includes capture (separation and compression) of CO2 from large, centralized CO2
emitters (such as power plants, metal industry, and cement producers), and transportation to a
suitable storage site (such as depleted oil and gas fields or saline aquifers). Carbonation of
natural silicate minerals is an interesting alternative to geological reservoirs for storage of CO2.

Aqueous mineral carbonation is a process of converting carbon

dioxide into solid carbonates and can be exploited to store CO2 as part of a CO2 capture and
storage system. Mineral carbonation using olivine as the source mineral was investigated. The
overall reaction of forsterite (end-member of olivine) is:

Mg2SiO4 + 2CO2 <=> 2MgCO3 + SiO2 (H = - 89 KJ mol-1 CO2)

The process can be split up in three main elementary

phenomena that control it kinetically:

 Dissolution of olivine
 Dissolution of CO2
 Magnesium carbonate precipitation.

In-situ Raman analysis was applied for monitoring the CO2

dissolution and speciation. Dissolution rates of olivine at different pH values and temperatures
are presented. Mg-carbonate precipitation was studied in the H2O-CO2- Na2CO3-MgCl2
system; the induction time was measured with FBRM and a turbidity meter, and precipitated
solids were characterized using X-ray diffraction and SEM.
 Carbon Capturing and Storage

Experimental procedure:
 Firstly mineral is crushed using ball mill or pebble mill to convert into fine particles
ranging from 66-125µm.
 Make sieve analysis using sieve shaker to get desired sized particles.
 Try to dissolve in aqueous solution under different conditions of temperature as 3OºC,
4OºC, 5OºC, 6OºC, 7OºC, using different acidic and basic solvents such as HCL, H2SO4,
HNO3, CH3COOH, HCOOH, NaOH, KOH, NH3, NH4NO3 perform dissolution
experiment.
 If only acid was used, the pH of the solution would increase during the course of
dissolution, affecting the reaction rate.
 To eliminate the effect of varying pH on the dissolution rate, a buffer was used. For the
majority of experiments in this work buffer 4.6 pH is used.
 Dissolution of mineral in solvent results in the separation of Mg ions along with some
amount of silicate. For 7OºC maximum Mg ions are separated.
 Concentration of different ions such as Mg, Ca, Fe, Al Ni, Mn, Cu are identified using
Inductively Coupled Plasma –Atomic Emission Spectrometry with two different
wavelengths to give a more exact reference number.
 The carbonate (CO3) content of lizardite was determined using a Shimadzu 5000A
Total Organic Carbon (TOC) analyzer, while the loss on ignition was determined by
drying the sample at 970 °C for 1 h.

Experimental setup:

ICP-AES
The ICP-AES is composed of two parts, the ICP and the optical spectrometer. The
ICP torch consists of 3 concentric quartz glass tubes. The output or "work" coil of the radio
frequency (RF) generator surrounds part of this quartz torch. Argon gas is typically used to create
the plasma.

When the torch is turned on, an intense electromagnetic field is created within the coil
by the high power radio frequency signal flowing in the coil. This RF signal is created by the RF
generator which is, effectively, a high power radio transmitter driving the "work coil" the same
way a typical radio transmitter drives a transmitting antenna. Typical instruments run at either 27
or 40 MHz. The argon gas flowing through the torch is ignited with a Tesla unit that creates a
brief discharge arc through the argon flow to initiate the ionization process. Once the plasma is
"ignited", the Tesla unit is turned off.
Within the optical chamber(s), after the light is separated
into its different wavelengths (colours), the light intensity is measured with a photomultiplier
 Carbon Capturing and Storage
tube or tubes physically positioned to "view" the specific wavelength(s) for each element line
involved, or, in more modern units, the separated colors fall upon an array of semiconductor
photodetectors such as charge coupled devices (CCDs). In units using these detector arrays, the
intensities of all wavelengths (within the system's range) can be measured simultaneously,
allowing the instrument to analyze for every element to which the unit is sensitive all at once.
Thus, samples can be analyzed very quickly.
The intensity of each line is then compared to previously measured intensities of
known concentrations of the elements, and their concentrations are then computed by
interpolation along the calibration lines.
In addition, special software generally corrects for interferences caused by the presence of
different elements within a given sample matrix.

Equipment involved:
 Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry ICP-AES.
 Total Organic Carbon TOC Analyzer.
 X-Ray Diffraction XRD
 X-Ray Flourescence spectroscope XRF.
 Furnace
 Sieve Shaker
 SEM
 FBRM
 Turbidity meter

Facilities available and requirements:

Research timeline: