Project description DEENESFRITPL Carbon capture gets a boost from energy-efficient and high-performance nanomaterials Carbon capture technologies have a critical role to play in reducing atmospheric CO2, given the difficulty of achieving zero emissions in the near future. Amine scrubbing has been used to separate CO2 from natural gas and hydrogen for more than a century. However, the energy required is significant. The EU-funded UltimateMembranes project will develop high performance separation membranes for several carbon-capture applications using crystal engineering to develop size-selective, chemically and thermally stable, nanoporous two-dimensional membranes. They will reduce energy consumption and intensify the process, while being environmentally friendly and compatible with decentralised operation. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective The EU integrated strategic energy technology plan, SET-plan, in its 2016 progress report, has called for urgent measures on the carbon capture, however, the high energy-penalty and environmental issues related to the conventional capture process (amine-based scrubbing) has been a major bottleneck. High-performance membranes can reduce the energy penalty for the capture, are environment-friendly (no chemical is used, no waste is generated), can intensify chemical processes, and can be employed for the capture in a decentralized fashion. However, a technological breakthrough is needed to realize such chemically and thermally stable, high-performance membranes. This project seeks to develop the ultimate high-performance membranes for H2/CO2 (pre-combustion capture), CO2/N2 (post-combustion capture), and CO2/CH4 separations (natural gas sweetening). Based on calculations, these membranes will yield a gigantic gas permeance (1 and 0.1 million GPU for the H2 and the CO2 selective membranes, respectively), 1000 and 10-fold higher than that of the state-of-the-art polymeric and nanoporous membranes, respectively, reducing capital expenditure per unit performance and the needed membrane area. For this, we introduce three novel concepts, combining the top-down and the bottom-up crystal engineering approaches to develop size-selective, chemically and thermally stable, nanoporous two-dimensional membranes. First, exfoliated nanoporous 2d nanosheets will be stitched in-plane to synthesize the truly-2d membranes. Second, metal-organic frameworks will be confined across a nanoporous 2d matrix to prepare a composite 2d membrane. Third, atom-thick graphene films with tunable, uniform and size-selective nanopores will be crystallized using a novel thermodynamic equilibrium between the lattice growth and etching. Overall, the innovative concepts developed here will open up several frontiers on the synthesis of high-performance membranes for a wide-range of separation processes. Fields of science engineering and technologymaterials engineeringcrystalsengineering and technologynanotechnologynano-materialstwo-dimensional nanostructuresgrapheneengineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsfossil energynatural gasengineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringcarbon capture engineering Keywords Two-dimensional membranes carbon capture crystal engineering gas separation exfoliation top-down synthesis bottom-up synthesis metal-organic frameworks graphene chemical vapor deposition Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-2018-STG - ERC Starting Grant Call for proposal ERC-2018-STG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-STG - Starting Grant Host institution ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE Net EU contribution € 1 875 000,00 Address BATIMENT CE 3316 STATION 1 1015 Lausanne Switzerland See on map Region Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera Région lémanique Vaud Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 875 000,00 Beneficiaries (1) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE Switzerland Net EU contribution € 1 875 000,00 Address BATIMENT CE 3316 STATION 1 1015 Lausanne See on map Region Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera Région lémanique Vaud Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 875 000,00