NANOMEMC2 activity can be divided in 3 different main tasks: Materials development, Technoeconomic and environmental analysis – Exploitation and dissemination of results.
Materials development focused on the production of graphene or nanocellulose based hybrid membranes and allowed to obtain more than 80 different membrane materials by coupling purposely modified nanofillers with commercial or pseudo commercial polymers.
The different materials resulted in many close to, and even able to surpass the Robeson’s upper bound indicating the state of the art limit for membrane separations (Fig 2). Two membranes were selected for industrial testing within the project (Fig. 3), one based on Polyvinylalcohol and Aminoacid salts and a second one obtained by blending porous graphene and Polyallylamine. Interestingly, lab scale test showed similar properties for the two membranes (permeance in the order of 800 GPU and selectivity close to 40), but the results of the tests for the second membrane revealed higher fluxes (Fig. 4) and also proved its resistance to most common contaminants such as SOx and NOx.
Materials development was always accompanied by process analysis aiming at a competitive integration of membranes into different industrial processes. These activities demonstrated the applicability of the novel materials developed for carbon capture in industrial environment considering production scenarios originating from 3 industrial sectors:
• Power generation (from natural gas or coal gasification)
• Clinker production
• Hydrogen production via steam methane reforming
The analysis, suggested that NANOMEMC2 membrane materials are economically very attractive over conventional, non-membrane-based carbon capture soluteions, when processing streams with high partial pressure of carbon dioxide such as in the case of the production of hydrogen from reformers or the production of power by coal gasification (Fig. 5).
The lifecycle assessment also indicates that the NANOMEMC2 membranes represent very promising materials, as all test cases studied showed a reduced Global Warming Potential (GWP) with respect to the business as usual case. More restricted benefits are found with regard to the total environmental impacts due to the additional use of utilities and resources (natural gas, water etc.) needed to carry on the capture. (Fig. 6)
Additional areas of application were also explored confirming the potential of the membranes in high CO2-partial pressure scenarios (i.e. Autothermal reforming) and showing very promising results in biogas upgrading applications due to the boosted selectivity of the material that minimises the losses of methane compared to conventional solution-diffusion membranes.
In order to maximise the impact of the project results, several exploitation and dissemination activities were also performed: 3 exploitation workshops were organized and a stakeholder analysis was carried out as a basis for the project’s exploitation strategy. KER were identified and discussed within the consortium and a market analysis was also carried out for the most interesting applications namely Hydrogen production clinker production and biogas upgrading.
Projects results were also presented to a vast audience through a number of dissemination activities including the use of social media, project website and several communication materials, the organization of a dissemination and an industrial workshop, the presentation or results at international conferences and in scientific publications.
