LUNA INNOVATIONS INCORPORATED — Department of Energy SBIR Phase II: 17c

Description

There are increasing economic, social, and environmental factors motivating the use of clean energy technologies that reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Natural gas power plants have emerged as the largest source of domestic electric power generation as well as the most important application for carbon capture, use, and sequestration. The application of conventional carbon capture technologies to natural gas power plants, however, are not economically feasible and cannot meet the Department of Energy cost targets. A new carbon capture technology is being advanced that is specific for natural gas power plants. This unique, separation membrane technology efficiently powers carbon capture with steam. The modular membrane technology is being developed for simple, low-cost integration into new plants or retrofits of existing power plants. The initial technical feasibilities of separation performance and scale-up have been successfully demonstrated. The separation membranes can achieve unrivaled, high performance combinations of gas permeation and selectivity in the target temperature range. The technology has undergone initial scale up to multi-membrane modules and the next generation of advanced modules have been designed. In the following phase, membrane manufacturing will be advanced to apply the new design features. The modules and testing platform will be scaled up by another 15X. The plans for integrating into the natural gas power plant will be developed in partnership with the world’s leading supplier of heat recovery steam generator technology. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to quantify the potential value of the carbon capture technology. The carbon capture technology will benefit the public by reducing carbon emissions and enabling an inexpensive supply of carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery. Over 100 billion tons of carbon dioxide is needed to enhance domestic oil production to cost-effectively and efficiently maintain American energy dominance. A significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions is expected to have a beneficial effect on the environment. In other programs, variants of the membrane technology are being developed to separate the oxygen from air for advanced combustion and produce nitric acid for fertilizers. The air separation membranes have the potential to enable the economically feasible use of clean coal.