Honeywell (Charlotte, North Carolina, USA) announced an agreement with The University of Texas at Austin that will enable the lower-cost capture of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from power plants and heavy industry.
The company will leverage UT Austin’s proprietary advanced solvent technology to create a new offering targeted at power, steel, cement, and other industrial plants to lower emissions generated from combustion flue gases in new or existing units. The solution provides these sectors with an additional tool to help meet regulatory requirements and sustainability goals.
This new carbon capture technology builds on the company’s track record of sharply reducing the greenhouse gas intensity of its operations and facilities, and also helps further its commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2035. The licensing agreement with UT Austin expands Honeywell’s leading carbon capture portfolio, thereby enabling the company to currently capture 40 million tons of CO2 per year through its installed projects worldwide.
UT Austin's patented solution utilizes an advanced solvent, which enables CO2 to be captured at a lower cost through greater efficiency using smaller equipment, creating viable project economics today under current CO2 policy frameworks in North America and Europe. This point source CO2 removal technology can be retrofitted within existing plants or included as part of a new installation, thereby presenting an enormous opportunity for significant emissions reduction.
“As the world proactively seeks technology solutions that limit greenhouse gas emissions, we recognize that carbon capture technology is an important lever available today to reduce emissions in carbon-intensive industries that have few alternative options, such as steel plants and fossil fuel power plants,” says Ben Owens, vice president and general manager, Honeywell Sustainable Technology Solutions. “By working with UT Austin, our advanced solvent carbon capture system will enable lower cost of CO2 captured post-combustion.”
“UT Austin is a leader in carbon capture research, focusing in this area for more than 20 years through its Texas Carbon Management Program (TxCMP),” continues Owens. “Gary Rochelle, professor at the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering and leader of TxCMP at UT Austin, and his team have established an efficient, second-generation amine scrubbing system through years of research and analysis. The improved performance from this solution can unlock project economics for ‘hard to abate’ industries such as steel, cement, and chemical plants, and coal, natural gas and bio-energy power plants.”
“We are thrilled that our decades of research has led to carbon capture technology that can significantly reduce carbon emissions,” says Rochelle, who also provides consulting services to Honeywell as part of the licensing agreement. “The licensing agreement with Honeywell enables us to commercially scale this in ways that can make major contributions toward zero emissions efforts to address global warming and to reduce pollutants in surrounding communities.”
Source: Honeywell, www.honeywell.com.