Search Results (239)

Syngas fermentation is a promising carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technology for producing carboxylic acids while transforming low-cost waste gas into high-value products. This study evaluates the two bioreactor feeding strategies for synthesis gas (syngas) fermentation by Eubacterium callanderi (formerly Butyribacterium methylotrophicum) strain Marburg—on-demand feeding (ODF) and continuous feeding (CF)—with a synthetic syngas mixture of 23 vol% CO₂, 29 vol% CO, 32 vol% H₂, and 16 vol% CH₄, mimicking the syngas from lignocellulosic gasification. The ODF assay achieved a maximum syngas consumption rate of 112 mL/h, yielding 24.1 g/L acids, namely 22.9 g/L acetate and 1.3 g/L butyrate. CF of syngas at 223 mL/h required more gas (62.9 L) to produce 22.7 g/L total acids, from which 19.0 g/L acetate and 3.7 g/L butyrate were achieved. The CF-specific production rate (g_product/g_{dry_cell_weight}/hour) reached 0.5 g/g_DCW/h (acetate) and 0.17 g/g_DCW/h (butyrate), outperforming ODF with 0.3 and 0.02 g/g_DCW/h, respectively. ODF minimized gas wastage and enabled CH₄ accumulation inside the bioreactor up to approximately 78 vol%, while CF led to CO₂ accumulation, indicating a need for more efficient CO₂ utilization strategies, such as sequential fermentations. This work highlights the critical impact of the two feeding options studied with regard to scaling up the carbon-efficient production of carboxylic acids, and indicates that both strategies can have potential applications. ODF is ideal for increasing carbon fixation and achieving, simultaneously, gas cleaning, while CF fermentations are better suited to maximizing the acid production rate. Full article

Coal constitutes China’s most significant resource endowment at present. Utilizing coal resources for hydrogen production represents an early-stage pathway for China’s hydrogen production industry. The analysis of energy quality and carbon emissions in coal gasification-based hydrogen production holds practical significance. This paper integrates the exergy analysis methodology into the traditional LCA framework to evaluate the exergy and carbon emission scales of coal gasification-based hydrogen production in China, considering the technical conditions of CCUS. This paper found that the life cycle exergic efficiency of the whole chain of gasification-based hydrogen production in China is accounted to be 38.8%. By analyzing the causes of exergic loss and energy varieties, it was found that the temperature difference between the reaction of coal gasification and CO conversion unit and the pressure difference due to the compressor driven by the electricity consumption of the compression process in the variable pressure adsorption unit are the main causes of exergic loss. Corresponding countermeasures were suggested. Regarding decarbonization strategies, the CCUS process can reduce CO₂ emissions across the life cycle of coal gasification-based hydrogen production by 48%. This study provides an academic basis for medium-to-long-term forecasting and roadmap design of China’s hydrogen production structure. Full article

Carbon dioxide (CO₂), the primary anthropogenic greenhouse gas, drives significant and potentially irreversible impacts on ecosystems, biodiversity, and human health. Achieving the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to well below 2 °C, ideally 1.5 °C, requires rapid and substantial global emission reductions. While recent decades have seen advances in clean energy technologies, carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) remain essential for deep decarbonization. Despite proven technical readiness, large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) deployment has lagged initial targets. This review evaluates CCS technologies and their contributions to net-zero objectives, with emphasis on sector-specific applications. We found that, in the iron and steel industry, post-combustion CCS and oxy-combustion demonstrate potential to achieve the highest CO₂ capture efficiencies, whereas cement decarbonization is best supported by oxy-fuel combustion, calcium looping, and emerging direct capture methods. For petrochemical and refining operations, oxy-combustion, post-combustion, and chemical looping offer effective process integration and energy efficiency gains. Direct air capture (DAC) stands out for its siting flexibility, low land-use conflict, and ability to remove atmospheric CO₂, but it’s hindered by high costs (~$100–1000/t CO₂). Conversely, post-combustion capture is more cost-effective (~$47–76/t CO₂) and compatible with existing infrastructure. CCUS could deliver ~8% of required emission reductions for net-zero by 2050, equivalent to ~6 Gt CO₂ annually. Scaling deployment will require overcoming challenges through material innovations aided by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, improving capture efficiency, integrating CCS with renewable hybrid systems, and establishing strong, coordinated policy frameworks. Full article

Global warming has become a major challenge facing human society, with carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions being its primary driver. Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) represents a promising technology for mitigating CO₂ emissions from industrial and energy sectors. However, challenges such as high energy consumption, lengthy construction cycles, significant costs, and inadequate policy and market mechanisms hinder the widespread adoption of CCUS technology. This paper reviews the potential, applications, and related policies of CCUS technology, highlighting current research progress and obstacles. First, it provides a comprehensive overview of the CCUS technology framework, detailing developments and engineering applications in capture, transport, enhanced oil recovery, and storage technologies. Through global case studies and analysis, the review also examines advancements in CCUS infrastructure and technology strategies, along with operational experiences from major global projects. Second, it delves into the mechanisms, applications, and challenges of CCUS-related technologies, which are crucial for advancing their industrial deployment. It also outlines policy measures adopted by different countries to support CCUS technology development and large-scale deployment. Finally, it projects future directions for CCUS technology and policy development. Full article

Biogas has been identified as a sustainable resource of renewable and clean energy because of its social, economic, and environmental benefits. In this work, the analysis of a biogas combined cycle power plant coupled with a carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technology and an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) was considered. The integrated process was subjected to a multi-objective assessment considering energy, economic, environmental, and safety items. The CCU system was taken to produce syngas as a value-added product, and the use of different working fluids for the ORC, namely, R1234yf, R290, and R717, was also examined. Such working fluids were selected to represent options with varying environmental and inherent safety implications. It was shown that the integration of the CCU and ORC components to the biogas cycle plant can provide significant benefits that include a 48.65 kt/year syngas production, a decrease in carbon capture energy penalty by 33%, and a reduction in e-CO₂ emissions above 80% with respect to the stand-alone power plant. Comparison with conventional technologies also showed important environmental benefits. The analysis of inherent safety showed that the selection of working fluids for the ORC can have a significant impact on the process risk. From the set of working fluids considered in this work, R717 provided the best choice for the integrated system based on its lowest operational risk and the highest electricity production (355 kWe). The multi-objective approach used in this work allowed the quantification of benefits provided by the integration of CCUs and ORCs with respect to the base process within an overall economic, sustainability, and inherent safety assessment. Full article

Promoting investment in Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) is essential for mitigating carbon emissions and combating climate change. This paper explores the uncertainties and environmental benefits associated with CCUS, integrating the frameworks of pollution right trading and carbon trading. A model for coal-fired power plant investment decisions on CCUS is developed and solved using the Least Squares Monte Carlo method, with results being robust beyond approximately 6000 simulation paths. Applied to a 600 MW ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plant in Shaanxi, China, our findings indicate that investment leads to a loss of CNY 1200.4 million in the absence of both environmental benefits and market trading mechanisms. A positive investment value of CNY 462 million with an optimal timing in the 10th year is achieved only when both environmental benefits and trading mechanisms are present. Furthermore, with only carbon trading, the option value is marginal (CNY 64.8 million), and investment remains unprofitable without government subsidies. Sensitivity analysis highlights that government subsidies significantly impact investment motivation. An initial carbon price of approximately CNY 95 per ton triggers immediate investment, while higher capture proportions and utilization levels positively affect decision-making. This study provides analytical tools for investment decisions in CCUS across multiple scenarios, serving as a reference for policymakers in designing emission reduction strategies. Full article

Offshore Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) is emerging as a critical strategy for achieving net-zero emissions, offering significant storage potential in depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs and deep saline aquifers while leveraging existing offshore infrastructure. This review summarizes recent advances in capture, transport, utilization, and storage technologies in the offshore industry. Case studies including Sleipner, Gorgon, and Northern Lights illustrate both the technical feasibility and the operational, economic, and regulatory challenges associated with large-scale deployment. While post-combustion capture and pipeline transport remain the most technologically mature approaches, significant uncertainties continue to exist regarding the logistics of marine transportation, reservoir integrity, and the robustness of monitoring frameworks. Policy and regulatory complexity, coupled with high capital costs and public acceptance issues, continue to constrain commercial viability. This review highlights that offshore CCUS holds significant promise but requires advances in monitoring technologies, cost reduction strategies, and harmonized international governance. Future research should focus on integrating CCUS with hydrogen production and renewable energy systems to accelerate large-scale deployment. Full article

Supercritical CO₂ (sCO₂) pipeline transport is a critical link for the large-scale implementation of Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) technology, yet its safety is severely challenged by residual impurity gases (e.g., H₂O, O₂, SO₂, H₂S, and NO₂) from the capture process. This review systematically consolidates recent research advances, with the key findings being the following. Firstly, it reveals that the nonlinear synergistic effects among impurities are the primary cause of uncontrolled corrosion, whose destructive impact far exceeds the simple sum of individual effects. Secondly, it delineates the specific roles and critical thresholds of different impurities within the corrosion chain reaction, providing a theoretical basis for targeted control. Consequently, engineering management must enforce strict impurity concentration thresholds integrated with material upgrades and dynamic operational optimization. Future research should focus on developing multi-impurity reaction kinetic models, elucidating long-term corrosion product layer evolution, and establishing standardized experimental systems. This review provides crucial theoretical support for establishing impurity control standards and optimizing anti-corrosion strategies for the safe transport of CO₂ in supercritical CCUS pipelines. Full article

The cement industry accounts for approximately 7–8% of global CO₂ emissions, primarily due to energy-intensive clinker production and limestone calcination. With cement demand continuing to rise, particularly in emerging economies, decarbonization has become an urgent global challenge. The objective of this study is to systematically map and synthesize existing evidence on technological pathways, policy measures, and economic barriers to four core decarbonization strategies: clinker substitution, energy efficiency, alternative fuels, as well as carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) in the cement sector, with the goal of identifying practical strategies that can align industry practice with long-term climate goals. A scoping review methodology was adopted, drawing on peer-reviewed journal articles, technical reports, and policy documents to ensure a comprehensive perspective. The results demonstrate that each mitigation pathway is technically feasible but faces substantial real-world constraints. Clinker substitution delivers immediate reduction but is limited by SCM availability/quality, durability qualification, and conservative codes; LC₃ is promising where clay logistics allow. Energy-efficiency measures like waste-heat recovery and advanced controls reduce fuel use but face high capital expenditure, downtime, and diminishing returns in modern plants. Alternative fuels can reduce combustion-related emissions but face challenges of supply chains, technical integration challenges, quality, weak waste-management systems, and regulatory acceptance. CCUS, the most considerable long-term potential, addresses process CO₂ and enables deep reductions, but remains commercially unviable due to current economics, high costs, limited policy support, lack of large-scale deployment, and access to transport and storage. Cross-cutting economic challenges, regulatory gaps, skill shortages, and social resistance including NIMBYism further slow adoption, particularly in low-income regions. This study concludes that a single pathway is insufficient. An integrated portfolio supported by modernized standards, targeted policy incentives, expanded access to SCMs and waste fuels, scaled CCUS investment, and international collaboration is essential to bridge the gap between climate ambition and industrial implementation. Key recommendations include modernizing cement standards to support higher clinker replacement, providing incentives for energy-efficient upgrades, scaling CCUS through joint investment and carbon pricing and expanding access to biomass and waste-derived fuels. Full article

In the CCUS industrial chain, the pipeline transportation of CO₂ is a crucial link that connects the upstream and downstream. However, currently, there is still no reliable, stable, and efficient method for detecting pipeline leaks. Based on the time difference in arrival (TDOA) localization method within the acoustic emission technique, this study conducted preliminary experiments on air pipeline leak localization and experiments on gaseous CO₂ pipeline leak localization, thereby establishing the applicability of acoustic emission technology for leak detection in gaseous CO₂ pipelines. In the preliminary experiment on air pipeline leak location, the SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) of the CEEMDAN denoising algorithm is greater than that of the EEMD denoising algorithm. The larger the SNR, the smaller the signal interference, which proves the superiority of the CEEMDAN denoising algorithm. In the experiment on gaseous CO₂ pipeline leak location, the CEEMDAN denoising algorithm was adopted. Five time-delay estimation methods, namely GCC, Roth weighting, PHAT weighting, ML weighting, and SCOT weighting, were used for location calculations. The positioning accuracies were 10.6%, 6.9%, 6.9%, 8.6%, and 8.6% respectively, all meeting the engineering accuracy requirements. Combining the results of the preliminary experiment on air pipeline leak location, the Roth weighting time-delay estimation method is recommended. The results show that: Acoustic emission technology can be used for the leak location of gaseous CO₂ pipelines. Full article

The steel industry is a significant contributor to global CO₂ emissions due to the highly energy-intensive nature of its production processes. Specifically, steel production involves the conversion of iron ore into steel through processes such as the blast furnace method, which result in significant greenhouse gas emissions due to the combustion of fossil fuels and the chemical reactions involved. To address this challenge, Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) technologies are essential for reducing emissions by capturing CO₂ at its source, preventing its release into the atmosphere. This study focuses on a French steel plant with an annual production capacity of 6.6 million tons of steel and seeks to optimize the chemical absorption process by using a 30 wt.% MonoEthanolAmine (MEA) aqueous solution. To the authors’ knowledge, studies on this solvent, widely used for treating other types of flue gases, are still not present in the literature for the application to this gaseous stream. The goal is to minimize the thermal energy required for solvent regeneration by optimizing some key parameters. Additionally, an economic analysis is carried out, with a particular focus on different achievable CO₂ recovery ratios, with costs quantified as 102.48, 104.47, and 224.36 [$/t CO₂ removed] for 90%, 95%, and 99% CO₂ recovery, respectively. Full article

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is a non-toxic asphyxiant gas that, once released, can pose severe risks, including suffocation, poisoning, frostbite, and even death. As a critical component of carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technology, CO₂ pipeline transportation requires reliable leakage detection and precise localization to safeguard the environment, ensure pipeline operational safety, and support emergency response strategies. This study proposes an inversion model that integrates wireless sensor networks (WSNs) with the Gaussian plume model for CO₂ pipeline leakage monitoring. The WSN is employed to collect real-time CO₂ concentration data and environmental parameters around the pipeline, while the Gaussian plume model is used to simulate and invert the dispersion process, enabling both leak source localization and emission rate estimation. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed model achieves a source localization error of 12.5% and an emission rate error of 3.5%. Field experiments further confirm the model’s applicability, with predicted concentrations closely matching the measurements, yielding an error range of 3.5–14.7%. These findings indicate that the model satisfies engineering accuracy requirements and provides a technical foundation for emergency response following CO₂ pipeline leakage. Full article

Under the twin imperatives of climate change mitigation and sustainable development, achieving a low-carbon transformation of power systems has become a national priority. To clarify this objective, China issued the Blue Book on the Development of New Power System, which comprehensively defines the guiding concepts and characteristic features of a new power system. In this study, natural language processing-based keyword extraction techniques were applied to the document, employing both the TF-IDF and TextRank algorithms to identify its high-frequency terms as characteristic keywords. These keywords were then used as topic queries in the Web of Science Core Collection, yielding 1568 relevant publications. CiteSpace was employed to perform a bibliometric analysis of these records, extracting research hotspots in the new power system domain and tracing their evolutionary trajectories. The analysis revealed that “renewable energy” appeared 247 times as the core high-frequency term, while “energy storage” exhibited both high frequency and high centrality, acting as a bridge across multiple subfields. This pattern suggests that research in the new power system field has evolved from a foundation in renewable energy and storage toward smart grids, market mechanisms, carbon capture, and artificial intelligence applications. Taken together, these results indicate that early research was primarily grounded in renewable energy and storage technologies, which provided the technical basis for subsequent exploration of smart grids and market mechanisms. In the more recent stage, under the dual-carbon policy and digital intelligence imperatives, research hotspots have further expanded toward carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) and artificial intelligence applications. Looking ahead, interdisciplinary studies focusing on intelligent dispatch and low-carbon transition are poised to emerge as the next major research frontier. Full article

The individual’s willingness to pay (WTP) for environmental reduction programs is one way of gauging society’s environmental consciousness. We explore the determinants of an individual’s WTP for a product produced from carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technology in Qatar. A representative questionnaire sample was administered to 1012 respondents in Qatar on habits, perceptions, economic and religious attitudes related to environmental consciousness, and WTP. The findings reveal that environmental concern is significantly enhanced by environmental consciousness, awareness, and education, while environmental awareness also positively influences perceived social norms regarding others’ environmental awareness. Further, environmental consciousness, religiosity, and education are significantly positively associated with the WTP for an eco-friendly product. Also, those who earn high incomes have a greater WTP for eco-friendly products with premium prices of 10–75% higher. Respondents motivated by religious obligation have a significantly greater WTP for eco-friendly products with a 10–30% price premium. These findings imply the need for context-specific strategies that leverage cultural values, address income disparities, and effectively communicate the benefits of green choices to drive the adoption of green products. Full article

This study investigated youth’s empowerment through EU-funded climate change projects (CCPs) and the role that social research and public engagement play in that process. The importance of considering youth empowerment in a time of climate change is increasingly recognized. Youth are exposed to interrelated health, socioeconomic, and political vulnerabilities caused by climate change, but they often lack resources to address and navigate these changes. To help address these issues, youth empowerment holds the potential to give youth a greater influence over their lives in the context of an evolving climate. EU-funded CCPs play a crucial role in EU’s climate mitigation and adaptation policies, and the implementation of these projects can have widespread implications for youth across the EU. However, there is little research exploring the local youth implications of EU-funded CCPs. In this paper, we want to start addressing this knowledge gap by exploring how youth empowerment was facilitated, shaped, and restrained over a year-long collaboration with students from a Greek school as part of a Horizon 2020 project on the social acceptance of Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCUS) technologies. The findings indicate that the activities provided the students with opportunities to explore and express different types of concerns, knowledge, and perspectives on issues related to climate change, social acceptance, and CCUS. However, the empowering potential of these activities was also shaped by power differentials and contestations around the validity of different knowledge sources. For meaningful youth engagement through Horizon 2020 initiatives, more longitudinal and meaningful participation is needed. Full article