There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is broadly recognised as having the potential to play a key role in meeting climate change targets, delivering low carbon heat and power, decarbonising industry and, more recently, its ability to facilitate the net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. However, despite this broad consensus and its technical maturity, CCS has not yet been deployed on a scale commensurate with the ambitions articulated a decade ago. Thus, in this paper we review the current state-of-the-art of CO2 capture, transport, utilisation and storage from a multi-scale perspective, moving from the global to molecular scales. In light of the COP21 commitments to limit warming to less than 2 °C, we extend the remit of this study to include the key negative emissions technologies (NETs) of bioenergy with CCS (BECCS), and direct air capture (DAC). Cognisant of the non-technical barriers to deploying CCS, we reflect on recent experience from the UK's CCS commercialisation programme and consider the commercial and political barriers to the large-scale deployment of CCS. In all areas, we focus on identifying and clearly articulating the key research challenges that could usefully be addressed in the coming decade.

/pdf/carbon-capture-and-storage-ccs-the-way-forward-11rgsqyer0.pdf

Carbon capture and storage (CCS): the way forward

In recent years, Carbon Capture and Storage (Sequestration) (CCS) has been proposed as a potential method to allow the continued use of fossil-fuelled power stations whilst preventing emissions of CO2 from reaching the atmosphere. Gas, coal (and biomass)-fired power stations can respond to changes in demand more readily than many other sources of electricity production, hence the importance of retaining them as an option in the energy mix. Here, we review the leading CO2 capture technologies, available in the short and long term, and their technological maturity, before discussing CO2 transport and storage. Current pilot plants and demonstrations are highlighted, as is the importance of optimising the CCS system as a whole. Other topics briefly discussed include the viability of both the capture of CO2 from the air and CO2 reutilisation as climate change mitigation strategies. Finally, we discuss the economic and legal aspects of CCS.

Carbon capture and storage update

Structure and nanostructure in ionic liquids.

Ionic liquids offer a unique suite of properties that make them important candidates for a number of energy related applications. Cation–anion combinations that exhibit low volatility coupled with high electrochemical and thermal stability, as well as ionic conductivity, create the possibility of designing ideal electrolytes for batteries, super-capacitors, actuators, dye sensitised solar cells and thermo-electrochemical cells. In the field of water splitting to produce hydrogen they have been used to synthesize some of the best performing water oxidation catalysts and some members of the protic ionic liquid family co-catalyse an unusual, very high energy efficiency water oxidation process. As fuel cell electrolytes, the high proton conductivity of some of the protic ionic liquid family offers the potential of fuel cells operating in the optimum temperature region above 100 °C. Beyond electrochemical applications, the low vapour pressure of these liquids, along with their ability to offer tuneable functionality, also makes them ideal as CO2 absorbents for post-combustion CO2 capture. Similarly, the tuneable phase properties of the many members of this large family of salts are also allowing the creation of phase-change thermal energy storage materials having melting points tuned to the application. This perspective article provides an overview of these developing energy related applications of ionic liquids and offers some thoughts on the emerging challenges and opportunities.

/pdf/energy-applications-of-ionic-liquids-4xj70drpc5.pdf

Energy applications of ionic liquids

The present invention discloses a high temperature and high pressure array electrode sensor device which comprises sensor cavity, electrode and airproof structure. Wherein, electrode slices are jointed on lead which through hole on the wall of sensor cavity and pasted uniformly on the inside wall of sensor cavity coated with insulation high temperature resistant material and sealed by ferrule. The said device is used as former sensor of data collecting passage of resistance tomography system to realize high-temperature and high-pressure reaction and in-situ flow field measurement of liquid transfer. The device of present invention has the merits of high temperature resistance, high pressure resistance, corrosion resistance and flexible installation.

High-temperature high pressure array electrode sensor device

Alkylation performance of isobutane with propene catalyzed by composite ionic liquid (CIL) was deeply investigated. Critical components of alkylate were C7 isoparaffins, which were mainly 2,3-dimethylpentane and 2,4-dimethylpentane. The optimal reaction conditions were as follows: reaction temperature of 15 °C, reaction time of 5 s, stirring rate of 1500 rpm, IL/HC ratio of 1.0, and I/O ratio of 68. Under these conditions, the yield of C7 isoparaffins was 78.9 wt %, and the research octane number of alkylate was 86.2. The reaction mechanism and pathway of isobutane/propene alkylation were proposed on the basis of component distribution. C7 isoparaffins were mainly from direct alkylation, and C8 isoparaffins were mainly from disproportionation. Compared with traditional concentrated sulfuric acid and hydrofluoric acid catalysts, more direct alkylation and less self-alkylation occurred, and the yield of propane was much lower when CIL was used. It was also proved that propene could be used in the CIL-catalyzed alkylation industrial unit due to the low propane production. 

Reaction Behaviors and Mechanism of Isobutane/Propene Alkylation Catalyzed by Composite Ionic Liquid

Online microparticle detection is of utmost importance for industrial production. This paper proposes a signal processing and feature identification strategy to achieve particle size statistics for online measurement in a three-phase stirred tank reactor based on the electrical sensing zone (ESZ) method. Signal denoising and de-interference are achieved using the wavelet soft threshold method combined with mathematical morphological filtering. Pulse selection is implemented using pulse width limiting conditions. The key features that distinguish the pulse waveforms are defined based on the differences in the motion characteristics of the different types of particles through the aperture. Finally, the unsupervised classification algorithm BIRCH clustering is employed to distinguish the pulsed features between hard particles and bubbles. The results show that the particle size distribution identified by this strategy agrees with offline measurements indicating the effectiveness of the scheme. The effects of electromagnetic noise and the interference of small bubbles that approximate the particle size in solution in the online, in-situ measurement task are solved. This study scheme has a guiding and facilitating role in applying the ESZ principle to the industrial online measurement environment.

A signal analysis and identification scheme for an online multiphase micron-sized particle analyzer system

The invention relates to an ionic eutectic solvent capable of effectively reversibly absorbing ammonia gas, and belongs to the technical field of gas separation and purification. The eutectic solventis formed by proton-type imidazole ionic liquid as a hydrogen-bond acceptor and polyol as a hydrogen-bond donor; therefore, raw materials are rich and are easy to get, a synthetic process is simple, and large scale preparation is convenient to carry out; moreover, because of a multi-site hydrogen bond effect among hydrogen protons in ionic liquid, a hydroxyl group in the polyol and NH3 molecules,high-efficient absorption of NH3 is facilitated; by adopting a heating or pressure reduction way, the NH3 can be completely desorbed out, and a regenerated absorbing agent can be recycled, and the absorption performance keeps stable. The solvent has the advantages of simple synthesis, low viscosity, good stability, high NH3 absorption quantity, easiness for desorption, recyclability and the like,therefore, the solvent is an absorbing agent which extremely has application prospects and can perform purification and separation on the NH3.

Ionic eutectic solvent capable of effectively reversibly absorbing ammonia gas

The separation of carbon dioxide (CO2) is of great importance for environment protection and gas resource purification. The ionic liquids (ILs)-based gas separation membrane provides a new chance for efficient CO2 separation, while high permeability and selectivity of membranes is a great challenge. In this study, the influence of two protic ILs with different anion ([TMGH][Im] and [TMGH][PhO]) on the CO2 separation performance of the prepared ILs/Pebax blended membranes were systematically investigated at different temperature. The results showed the CO2 permeability exhibits the rising trend for ILs/Pebax blended membranes with the increment of IL content. Especially, the [TMGH][Im] with low viscosity and high CO2 absorption capacity leads to the blended membranes showing better CO2 permeability and ideal CO2 selectivity than that of membranes with [TMGH][PhO] at high IL content. Besides, with operating temperature increasing, the gas permeability of 20% (mass) [TMGH][Im]/Pebax blended membrane increases due to the decreasing viscosity of IL and the rising chain mobility of polymer. Inversely, the gas selectivity shows decreasing trend because CO2 absorption capacity obviously decreased at higher temperature. 

Haifeng Dong

Papers

High-temperature high pressure array electrode sensor device

Reaction Behaviors and Mechanism of Isobutane/Propene Alkylation Catalyzed by Composite Ionic Liquid

A signal analysis and identification scheme for an online multiphase micron-sized particle analyzer system

Ionic eutectic solvent capable of effectively reversibly absorbing ammonia gas

The effect of protic ionic liquids incorporation on CO2 separation performance of Pebax-based membranes