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Title: Mineral carbonation: energy costs of pretreatment options and insights gained from flow loop reaction studies

Conference ·
OSTI ID:899009

Sequestration of carbon as a stable mineral carbonate has been proposed to mitigate environmental concerns that carbon dioxide may with time escape from its sequestered matrix using alternative sequestration technologies. A method has been developed to prepare stable carbonate products by reacting CO2 with magnesium silicate minerals in aqueous bicarbonate/chloride media at high temperature and pressure. Because this approach is inherently expensive due to slow reaction rates and high capital costs, studies were conducted to improve the reaction rates through mineral pretreatment steps and to cut expenses through improved reactor technology. An overview is given for the estimated cost of the process including sensitivity to grinding and heating as pretreatment options for several mineral feedstocks. The energy costs are evaluated for each pretreatment in terms of net carbon avoided. New studies with a high-temperature, high-pressure flow-loop reactor have yielded information on overcoming kinetic barriers experienced with processing in stirred autoclave reactors. Repeated tests with the flow-loop reactor have yielded insights on wear and failure of system components, on challenges to maintain and measure flow, and for better understanding of the reaction mechanism.

Research Organization:
Albany Research Center (ARC), Albany, OR (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
OSTI ID:
899009
Report Number(s):
DOE/ARC-2004-042; TRN: US0701729
Resource Relation:
Conference: 3rd Annual Conference on Carbon Capture & Sequestration, Alexandria, VA, May 3-6, 2004 (sponsored by the National Energy Technology Laboratory, US Dept. of Energy); Related Information: Presented as a poster session with full text published on CD of Proceedings
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English