Active Clean Energy Materials & Manufacturing

Scaling-up of a highly modular rotating packed bed plant with an efficient solvent for capture cost reduction

Funder UKRI
Recipient organisation Richard Alan Engineering Company Limited
Funding £4.8M
Period Nov 2022 — Oct 2026

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

A modular CO2 capture plant, small enough to fit on a shipping container, will be tested at three different industrial sites in Greece. The technology uses a rotating packed bed—essentially a spinning cylinder that forces gas and liquid into rapid contact—to strip carbon dioxide from flue gas far more efficiently than conventional towers. Current carbon capture systems are bulky, expensive, and energy-hungry, which has limited their deployment. This project aims to cut capture costs by up to 50% compared to standard amine-based scrubbers, while requiring at least ten times less space. The solvent and spinning reboiler design also promise 20% lower environmental impact and 50% lower safety risks, with less corrosion and fewer chemical emissions. If successful, the 10-tonne-per-day demonstration could make post-combustion carbon capture economically viable for gas power plants, industrial boilers, and lime production. The project also includes surveys of over 750 industry members and studies of CO2 transport and storage options in Northern Greece. The result would be a flexible, modular technology that can be dropped into existing industrial sites without massive infrastructure rebuilds—a practical tool for decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors.

View original technical description
In a world’s first, HiRECORD will demonstrate at TRL 6, a modular CO2 capture plant that will comprise a Rotating Packed Bed (RPB) absorber and an advanced RPB disrober with integrated spinning reboiler (RPB-ISR). The plant will be of 10 t/d CO2 capture capacity and will operate with the advanced, APBS-CDRMax solvent. It will be operated on the premises of a natural-gas power plant (ELPEDISON), of an industrial gas boiler (TOTAL ENERGIES ONE TECH) and of a quicklime plant (CAO Hellas), highlighting the high modularity and flexibility of RPB processes with flue gases of different specifications. The advanced capture plant will allow up to 50% capture cost reduction, compared to conventional MEA-based, packed-bed technologies. This reduction will result from at least 10 times lower space footprint due to the use of the RPBs, with direct beneficial impacts on capital expenditures, as well as a regeneration energy of 2.0-2.1 GJ/tCO2 due to the use of the APBS-CDRMax solvent and the RPB-ISR. These features will also enable 20% and 50% lower environmental and safety impacts, as the solvent and operating conditions will minimize emissions, corrosion, and make-up requirements. Techno-economic studies will also include an industrial cluster in Northern Greece, where options of CO2 utilization as well transportation and sequestration in nearby geological sites will also be investigated. Extensive societal, public acceptance and policy studies will also be performed, including surveys to the over 750 members of the industrial association partner SEVE.

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Related Research

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Scaling-up of a highly modular rotating packed bed plant with an efficient solvent for capture cost reduction (hirecord)
Scaling-up of a Highly Modular Rotating Packed Bed Plant with an Ef?cient Solvent for Capture Cost Reduction (HiRECORD)
Process Intensification for Post-combustion Carbon Capture using Rotating Packed Bed through Systems Engineering Techniques
Enzymatic CO2 Capture in a Rotating Packed Bed and Electrocatalytic CO2 Reduction to Useful Products
Intensified Process for CAPturing CO2

Original classification

EU-Funded

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