Current Projects

Oxy-Fuel (Oxy-PF)

Gas quality impacts, assessment and control in oxy-fuel
The cost of gas cleaning is likely to be more significant for Oxyfuel than for other Carbon Capture technologies. This project will identify the impact of gas quality on the capital and operating costs of power plant CO₂ compression, on transport systems and gas quality regulations for storage.

Post Combustion Capture (PCC)

Environmental impacts of amine based CO₂ PCC processes
This project will seek to assess new types of pollutant emissions produced from power plants with PCC technologies, and to subsequently analyse and develop regulatory and permitting conditions applicable to the deployment of PCC plants in Australia.

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CO₂ Transport and Storage

Achieving Risk and Cost Reductions in CO₂ Geo -sequestration through 4D Characterisation of Host Formations.
This project seeks to test the hypothesis that the resulting carbonic acid will dissolve minerals in the near-wellbore region, causing an increase in porosity and accessibility of more pore space, and thus an increase in permeability, which is a key determinant of fluid injectivity. Testing will also be conducted into the hypothesis that time dependent anisotropic permeability, especially in the horizontal direction, can lead to significant reductions in estimates of both storage capacity and injectivity, which occur as a result of overpressure of the injection fluid caused by substantial near-well stress increases in the formation.

Otway Stage 2
Following the success demonstration of CO₂ injection and storage into a depleted gas field of the Stage 1 of the CO₂CRC Otway Project, the project is to now further enhance the opportunities offered by the Otway site. It will be based on injection of CO₂ into a heterogeneous formation with no apparent structural closure, with the principal objective of understanding trapping mechanisms in saline aquifers of the type that will be used by commercial CCS projects. The modelling and test plan will be included for Stage 2 and the basis for a larger scale injection (up to 100,000 tonnes) will be provided subsequently.

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Brown Coal – ANLEC R&D funds the projects through BCIA

Development of Contactor Internals for Application of the WES Froth Generator Gas/Liquid Absorption Technology
To comprehensively develop process configurations and conceptual system arrangements using enhanced process evaluation, fluid dynamics evaluation, mechanical evaluation, laboratory and pilot scale testing, to achieve scale up factors necessary for commercialization.

Combined low-cost pre-treatment of flue gas and capture of CO₂ from brown coal-fired power stations – coCAPco
The objective of the coCAPco project is to enable a proof-of-concept for combined SO2/CO₂ removal process for application in Victorian brown coal-fired power stations. It will assess the technology and economic risks based on pilot plant trial results with real flue gas. The work will validate a combination of fully developed and widely available FGD spray tower systems and CSIRO’s extensive knowledge on CO₂ solvent scrubbing systems. The objective is also to test and prove the added benefit of removing SO2 in conjunction with the CO₂ removal for less capital expenditure. This will deliver environmental benefits that will surpass and exceed current licence requirements.

IDGCC - Next Generation Lower Emissions Gasification Systems
The study will review oxy fired IDGCC in the context of product options, developing conceptual process designs and reporting on their comparative performance in terms of techno-economics and efficiency. The study will also take opportunity to identify work program needs and prepare preliminary designs for a pilot-scale gasification and gas processing facility.

Pilot-scale oxy-fuel combustion of Victorian brown coal
As the continuation of the lab-scale research of oxy-PF combustion of Victorian brown coal in 2007-10 in Monash, this project aims to further clarify the engineering characteristics of wet brown coal combustion in O2/ CO₂; thus providing a more complete understanding of the influence of inherent moisture in coal and flue gas quality on the heat transfer in a boiler, the combustibility and emission properties of wet Victorian brown coal (containing ˜60 wt% H2O) on pilot-scale facilities. The project hopes to ultimately deliver a mature oxy-fuel technology for Victorian brown coal combustion to generate clean and CO₂-rich flue gas which is ready for storage/sequestration within the next few years.

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Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA)

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Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC)

IGCC Solids disposal and utilisation
Ensuring relevance to the Australian IGCC-CCS demonstration projects, a review and study will be conducted into the regulations, legislation and relevant technologies currently applied to the disposal or use of gasifier slags and other solid by-products of gasification.

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Alternatives & Fundamentals

Signal processing of hydrographs for the long term monitoring and verification of freshwater aquifers in the vicinity of a CCS project
The objectives of this project are to investigate the sensitivity of water level data from pre-existing water bores to detect changes in water level (head) due to the presence of CO₂. If successful, this process has the potential to significantly reduce onshore monitoring costs by maximising the value of pre-existing wells and pinpointing the location of any new monitoring wells.

Evaluation of CO₂ capture with high performance hollow fibre membranes from flue gas
The project objectives are to test and validate improvements to CO₂ capture using membrane technology, results of which will be essential for significantly reducing future commercial CCS projects cost by facilitating appropriate material selection and process design. This project will build on the research capacity for fabrication of defect free polymeric hollow fibre membranes with a range of selectivity and permeance and evaluation of membrane performance due to aging and plasticization.

A scoping study on oxy-CFB technology as an alternative
This study will deliver a report on the current technology status of oxy-CFB, with roadmaps to deployment, evaluate its applicability to Australia and with Australian coals, and identify the capability of international vendors and the R&D requirements for potential use of the technology with Australian coals.

A deployment strategy for effective geophysical remote sensing of CO₂ sequestration
This project will develop conceptual models which span the potential geometries and performance of demonstration flagships for CO₂ sequestration in brine filled sedimentary rocks, allowing such processes to be monitored to ensure that the CO₂ is going where it is expected to go.

CO₂CRC CCS cost reduction projects using next generation solvent processes and equipment
Research will be conducted, based on ‘Solvent precipitating systems’, to examine the fluid handling and equipment issues for processing slurry systems as well as developing the modelling capability needed for scale up. This new work fills gaps in knowledge and supports the timely development of large scale capture facilities at both black and brown coal power stations. Success will accelerate the commercialisation of potassium carbonate capture technology and provide a low cost capture process for both post and pre-combustion applications for black and brown coal power stations.

Large scale cost reduction through adsorption based oxygen generation technology
This project proposes to develop and evaluate oxygen selective adsorbents, following recent breakthroughs in the development of nano-materials, to synthesize, test and develop processes for high purity oxygen production from air at low power and high throughput.

Membrane processes for amine contaminant removal
This project will conduct trials of electro-dialysis and/or nano-filtration as alternative reclamation processes to high heat reclamation, in order to produce less environmentally unattractive waste whilst using less energy input.

Low cost hybrid capture technology development
This project will examine the use of first stage low energy capture processes, with second stage processes for more effective CO₂ concentration. The successful development of hybrid capture technology has the potential to reduce overall capture cost.

Mitigation of resource conflicts for CO₂ storage
Using a combination of literature review, data collection, analysis and interpretation, this project will try to gain an understanding of site specific resources that may potentially be affected by CO₂ storage, and seek methods to reduce the associated risks.

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