Six projects aim to make carbon capture more affordable and feasible at primarily coal-fired power plants with a financial boost from the Energy Department's (DOE's) Office of Fossil Energy. Research teams at the Gas Technology Institute, Membrane Technology and Research, Linde and the universities of Illinois and Kentucky will receive a portion of the $17.6 million in funds from the Novel and Enabling Carbon Capture Transformational Technologies program. The research is intended to improve reliability, cut costs and reduce the high-energy penalty associated with operating existing carbon capture technology. The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) will manage the selected projects, which will concentrate on transformational technologies that fall under two areas of interest. Area of Interest 1 focuses on developing transformational materials and processes for carbon dioxide (CO2) capture that will enable step-change reductions in the capital and energy cost. Area of Interest 2 focuses on enabling technologies that facilitate improved performance of transformational CO2 capture processes to reduce capital cost and energy penalties, and improve operational reliability and flexibility.
