【Ten Years of Rapid Development in Chemical Engineering Equipment】851-2022: China’s First Demonstration Project for Carbon Capture Using Membrane Technology
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On November 22, 2021, China’s first membrane-based carbon capture demonstration project – the 50,000 standard cubic meters per day carbon dioxide capture unit for the power boiler at Nanhua Company – was handed over. This is another new achievement by the company in the field of carbon dioxide capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), as part of its ongoing efforts to drive innovation toward achieving the \"dual carbon\" goals. In mid-January 2022, China’s first membrane-based carbon capture demonstration unit – the 50,000 m3/d flue gas carbon dioxide membrane capture system installed at Nanhua Company’s power boiler – was successfully commissioned for the first time, completing the entire process without issues.
This project was launched in 2017, with the support of the **Key R&D Program on ‘Clean and Efficient Utilization of Coal and New Energy-Saving Technologies’**. Tianjin University served as the leading institution for the project, with Wang Jixiao, a researcher at the School of Chemical Engineering, acting as the project leader. Wang Zhi, a professor at the same school and the inventor of the key membrane materials and membrane fabrication techniques for carbon capture, was responsible for coordinating the development of various aspects of the project. Multiple organizations across the country, including Shandong Jiuzhang Membrane Technology Co., Ltd., the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Sinopec Nanjing Research Institute of Chemical Technology Co., Ltd., also participated in this project. This project aims to develop an internationally leading complete technology chain for CO2 capture using membrane methods, based on the key membrane materials and membrane fabrication techniques for carbon capture invented by Tianjin University, and to build an industrial demonstration facility for membrane-based carbon capture with a CO2 capture rate of ≥90% and a CO2 concentration in the product gas of ≥95%. CO2 membrane separation technology offers significant energy and land savings, is environmentally friendly, and will provide key technologies for achieving the goals of \"carbon peak\" and \"carbon neutrality\", bringing substantial economic, ecological, and social benefits.
To address the challenge of carbon capture from flue gases in coal-fired power plants, the project team overcame one after another the technical hurdles in various stages, including the large-scale production of membrane materials, the development of membrane modules, as well as the design and construction of membrane separation processes and devices. They succeeded in mastering the key cutting-edge technologies for CO2 capture using membranes, thereby establishing a complete technological chain for this purpose. The project team has developed technologies for the large-scale synthesis of key materials for high-performance separation membranes as well as processes for layer-by-layer composite manufacturing of membrane materials. It has established China’s first industrial-scale carbon capture membrane production line (with an annual production capacity of 100,000 square meters), overcome the challenges related to the shaping and mass production of membrane modules at industrial scale, designed, built, and operated China’s first pilot-scale device for capturing CO2 from flue gas using membrane technology (with a flue gas treatment capacity of 30 Nm3/h), and designed and developed China’s first process package for a demonstration unit based on membrane-based CO2 capture. At present, with the collaborative efforts of various organizations across the country, an industrial demonstration facility for capturing CO2 using membrane technology is being built in Nanjing. This facility has a daily capacity to treat 50,000 Nm3 of flue gas, with an annual CO2 capture volume of around 3,000 tons. The operation of this facility and its system evaluation will be completed within this year, and it is expected that the targets for carbon capture from flue gas—namely a CO2 capture rate of ≥90% and a CO2 concentration in the output gas of ≥95%—will be achieved. This project is expected to lead the way in international carbon capture membrane technology, laying the foundation for the industrialization of membrane-based CO2 capture technology.
In April 2022, the **key research and development project “Membrane-based carbon dioxide capture technology and industrial demonstration” successfully passed the evaluation organized by the Ministry of Science and Technology. As the responsible party for the project titled “Research on the Integrated Process of Membrane Separation Systems for Carbon Dioxide Capture and Construction and Operation of a Demonstration Unit,” the Research Institute of Nanhua Company successfully built a demonstration unit for carbon dioxide membrane separation and capture with a capacity of 50,000 standard cubic meters per day, on schedule. The acceptance review concluded that the demonstration unit has fulfilled the project’s objectives in its operation, with its carbon dioxide capture capacity reaching an internationally advanced level. Membrane-based carbon capture technology offers advantages such as being environmentally friendly, requiring little space, and being suitable for various treatment scales. Through preliminary focused discussions and experimental efforts, as well as timely adjustments and optimizations to pipelines, equipment operation, and processes based on the actual operating conditions of the facility, the project team at Nanhua Company’s Research Institute achieved a carbon dioxide capture rate of 81% and a capture purity of 91% in the demonstration facility, thereby making significant progress in the industrialization of carbon capture membrane technology in China.
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