Description
Opportunity : Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), operated by the Lawrence Livermore National Security (LLNS), LLC under contract no. DE-AC52-07NA27344 (Contract 44) with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is offering the opportunity for collaboration and license of its new technology Composite Carbon Dioxide Sorbent. Background : Carbon capture and utilization are critical to reducing global warming potential and increasing energy sustainability. Thus, much emphasis has been placed on capture of carbon dioxide (CO2) from sources such as power plant flue gas, cement production, and biogas generated from anaerobic digestion. Typically, zeolites, amines, or membranes are used to capture CO2, but these suffer from limitations such as incompatibility with water and other gas contaminants, corrosivity, volatility, high cost to produce and operate, or attrition. Additionally, these capture processes are difficult to implement economically at the scale of smaller CO2 producers, such as biogas producers. LLNL has developed a transformative class of solid CO2 sorbents that overcomes many of the limitations of the current technologies. Description : LLNL’s composite CO2 sorbent is a silicone-based polymer and carbonate composite material that reacts reversibly with CO2 in the presence of water. It can be regenerated by modest heating or by air-stripping and subsequently used for repeated cycles of CO2 absorption. The material is low-cost, non-toxic, and easily handled as a solid sorbent in an absorption column. Advantages : LLNL’s solid CO2 sorbents are water-tolerant, nonvolatile, and inexpensive, thereby overcoming some of the primary limitations of other CO2 capture technologies. The sorbents require little energy to operate and can be completely and repeatedly regenerated with only room-temperature air. A preliminary techno-economic analysis (TEA) for using composite sorbents as an upgrading method for biogas indicates that the composite sorbent upgrading method has a CAPEX of approximately one third the cost of the lowest cost water scrubbing method and highly competitive OPEX with other competing upgrading technologies. In particular, the technology offers an approach that overcomes the cost barriers and operational challenges faced by facilities who are interested in CO2 capture using small-scale and medium-scale sources. Potential Applications : The technology offers a simple, robust, modular, and environmentally benign means of CO2 capture that can be applied to a wide range of industries including power generation, landfill management, wastewater treatment, and agriculture. LLNL has demonstrated that the sorbents selectively remove enough CO2 to deliver pipeline quality methane from industrial biogas. Development Status: This technology is at a TRL of approximately 5; LLNL has completed lab-scale prototype testing with up to 1 kilogram of material using scrubbed biogas from a wastewater treatment plant. Scale up for a small pilot scale demonstration (~20 kg of material) is in progress. LLNL has recently published two relevant journal articles: 1) Murialdo, M. et al. Three-Dimensional Printable Sodium Carbonate Composite Sorbents for Efficient Biogas Upgrading. Environ. Sci. Technol. (2020) doi:10.1021/acs.est.0c01755. 2) 1.Nguyen, D. et al. 3D Printed Polymer Composites for CO2 Capture. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 58, 22015–22020 (2019). LLNL is seeking industry partners with a demonstrated ability to bring such inventions to the market. Moving critical technology beyond the Laboratory to the commercial world helps our licensees gain a competitive edge in the marketplace. All licensing activities are conducted under policies relating to the strict nondisclosure of company proprietary information. Please visit the IPO website at https://ipo.llnl.gov/resources for more information on working with LLNL and the industrial partnering and technology transfer process. Note: THIS IS NOT A PROCUREMENT . Companies interested in commercializing LLNL's Composite Carbon Dioxide Sorbent should provide a written statement of interest, which includes the following: 1. Company Name and address. 2. The name, address, and telephone number of a point of contact. 3. A description of corporate expertise and facilities relevant to commercializing this technology.