Carbon capture technology can be further improved for efficiency by simply irradiating one of the components, according to research from a Khalifa University team of chemical engineers

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2), is paramount in combating climate change. Along with a paradigm shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, deployment of carbon capture and storage technologies is a key strategy to actively limit the global average rise in temperature to less than 1.5 ⁰C relative to pre-industrial levels.

Carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) is the most widely accepted and promising strategy for mitigating point source CO2 emissions, with technologies being increasingly demonstrated across a number of industries globally. These technologies typically include capturing CO2 from emission sources such as power plants, followed by compression prior to transportation to long-term storage sites. These approaches can be further improved for increased efficiency and reduced energy consumption and cost.

The team found that activating the graphene oxide using ultraviolet light improves the surface, structural, and morphological properties for enhanced selective carbon dioxide affinity.

Team members included Eng. Anish Mathai Varghese, Research Associate, Dr. K. Suresh Kumar Reddy, Research Scientist, and Dr. Georgios Karanikolos, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering. Their results were published in

Successful carbon capture needs a sorbent material that will selectively grab CO₂ in a stream of mixed gases and then readily release it when desired so that the material can be reused, while the captured CO₂ can be utilized or sent for long-term storage.

In adsorption, CO₂ collects in the pores in the material that serve as active capture sites. When, for instance, temperature is lowered, CO₂ adheres to the surface, and when temperature is raised, CO₂ is released. Changes in pressure can also bring about these capture and release cycles.

Currently, aqueous amine solutions, which are solutions containing water and organic compounds called amines that contain nitrogen atoms attached to hydrogen and carbon atoms, are used to capture CO₂ in industrial applications. Amine solutions are excellent at capturing the CO₂, making them the most popular and developed carbon capture technology. However, their disadvantage is that in order to recover the trapped CO₂ from the amine solution, the solution has to be heated, requiring large amounts of thermal energy and resulting in some amines being lost to the environment in this high-energy process.

To overcome the shortcomings of amine solutions, solid sorbent materials are a viable alternative. Solid sorbents can selectively adsorb CO₂, however some solid sorbent materials perform better than others.

“Adsorption is gaining increased attention due to advantages that include low energy consumption, ease of implementation, cost-effectiveness, and generation of harmless byproducts,” Eng. Varghese explained. “To be suitable for large scale carbon capture, however, the adsorbent materials need to offer certain features and properties, including low energy consumption, chemical and thermal stability, low manufacturing cost, and mechanical robustness. As such, a large variety of materials are being investigated globally, like metal-organic frameworks, zeolites, covalent organic materials, and porous polymers, among many others. We developed a hybrid metal-organic framework adsorbent using copper ions, and UV-activated graphene oxide.”

Metal-organic frameworks offer superior textural properties, high structural flexibility, and can be combined with various functional groups for different applications. However, MOFs typically possess low thermal and chemical stability, restricting their use in harsh environments. To overcome this, the research team used a MOF-based hybrid known as HKUST-1 or MOF-199. This MOF is particularly promising for CO2 capture thanks to its extended porous structure with large surface area and pore volume, along with good chemical stability, ease of synthesis and commercial viability. It is a 3D porous framework combining copper ions with oxygen atoms.

The team went a step further too: they used UV-irradiated graphene oxide to increase the hybrid MOF’s CO2 adsorption capacity by 45 percent.

UV irradiation of the graphene oxide affected the distribution of the copper ions on the surface of the resulting MOF, which enhanced the pore shape and structure to allow for better CO2 selectivity and adsorption.

“These results show that UV treatment is a simple and scalable technique that can enhance the characteristics and performance of MOF/GO hybrid adsorbents for CO2 capture,” Eng. Varghese said. “Our hybrid material is an excellent adsorbent in humid conditions, which is beneficial since water vapor is often present in CO2-containing mixtures, such as in post-combustion of fuels.”

This material now has the potential to be further developed and scaled-up, with UV activation of graphene before capture application serving as an easy and low-cost pre-treatment technology.

Jade Sterling
Science Writer
12 April 2022

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International research team including Khalifa University paves way towards the design of new simple and efficient photocatalysts made from covalent organic frameworks (COFs) to reduce captured CO2 into useful products

As the world continues to pump carbon into the atmosphere, it is increasingly important to not only reduce emissions but also find ways to capture and use carbon dioxide. Carbon capture and storage technologies are noble approaches, but don’t tend to make much money. Instead, attention turns to economically viable and valuable approaches to turn carbon dioxide into something useful.

Dr. Dinesh Shetty, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, and Dr. Abdul Khayum Mohammed, Postdoctoral Researcher, collaborated with an international team to develop a new photocatalyst to efficiently and sustainably transform carbon dioxide into useful products. The research team comprised members from New York University Abu Dhabi, American University of Beirut, Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid, Spain, University of Strasbourg, France, and University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia. The team’s results were published in

“Excessive anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere have led to global warming,” Dr. Shetty explained. “At the same time, CO2 is a nontoxic, inexpensive, abundant, and renewable source of carbon. Converting it into high value-added products would be a viable and economic use of the carbon dioxide around us.”

Numerous processes already exist to transform CO2 emissions into various chemicals valuable for industry, and among these processes, photocatalytic reduction of CO2 has been noted as particularly promising. There’s little wonder why: this is photosynthesis. Green plants convert carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates, performing this reaction under ambient conditions using just sunlight, which is an inexhaustible and environmentally-friendly energy source. Even better, photocatalytic CO2 reduction doesn’t create any secondary pollution.

“Carbon dioxide can be reduced into many forms, with carbon monoxide and formate the most common reduction products,” Dr. Shetty said. “Formate is preferred as it is the simplest oxygenated species produced, and an intermediate in the formation of methanol and other higher-order hydrocarbons, which can be used in plastics, paints, organic solvents, and fuel cells.”

Photocatalytic reduction of CO2 is not new—many semiconductor and molecular-based systems have been studied. However, their limited conversion efficiency, low binding affinity for CO2, unfavorable active-site architecture, and rapid charge recombination limit their overall performance. Covalent organic frameworks (COFs), such as that developed by the research team, have the potential to address many of these issues.

COFs are a class of materials that form two- or three-dimensional structures through reactions between their organic components, resulting in strong, covalent bonds that create porous, crystalline materials. They are uniquely tunable, with well-defined structures and good chemical stability and plenty of pores for adsorption applications.

Capturing the CO2 is the first step. A sorbent material is needed to selectively grab the carbon dioxide and allow it to collect in the pores in the material. And COFs for CO2 reduction already exist, but the majority produce carbon monoxide as their product, which is the less desirable of the two common products. Those that do produce formate often involve expensive noble metals or even enzymes.

The research team synthesized a novel COF using two different building units known as porphyrins and isoindigo to ensure the captured carbon dioxide reduces into formate, not carbon monoxide. Their PI-COF has a square layered structure and an improved affinity for carbon dioxide adsorption. Even without expensive rare materials or special catalysts, the research team’s PI-COF reduced carbon dioxide into formate with yields comparable to more complex systems.

“Our system performs similarly to others but requires much less power, making it a much more environmentally-friendly system,” Dr. Shetty said. “We expect this to pave the way towards more sustainable yet equally efficient photocatalytic systems for CO2 reduction.” Currently, Dr. Shetty’s team at KU is working on economically viable COF-based photoconducting materials for CO2 conversion.

Dr. Shetty is also a member of the Center for Catalysis and Separation (CeCaS), one of the research centers at KU.

Jade Sterling
Science Writer
4 February 2022

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A team of researchers from Khalifa University asks: Are we missing something when evaluating adsorbents for CO2 capture at the system level?

We may be on the brink of global-scale change in the way we consume hydrocarbon fuels, but until the policies and agreements made at COP26 in Glasgow this month can be actualized, our relentless fossil fuel consumption continues to pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. These continuous emissions are the leading cause of climate change and it’s clearer than ever that we need to do something about the levels of carbon in our atmosphere.

In 2015, the international community adopted the Paris Climate Agreement, agreeing to limit the global average rise in temperature this century to less than 2° C, compared to pre-industrial levels, but with ambitions to limit the rise to less than 1.5° C. Along with a paradigm shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, deployment of carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies was proposed as a core strategy to actively and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is in addition to the clear economic benefit that could be derived from using CO2 as a feedstock material for chemical products in a resilient circular economy.

This means that carbon capture and storage technologies can be implemented across a range of industries from heating to electricity generation. To remove existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, we can use chemical solvents of different types, including membranes that adsorb carbon dioxide into porous molecules such as potassium hydroxide. However, this technology is currently expensive and energy intensive, as the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is much diluted. Alternatively, CO2 capture from concentrated sources such as power plants is expected to play an important role in avoiding CO2 emissions, contributing to climate change mitigation. The more mature technology used in industry today for this purpose is absorption with chemical solvents.

Absorption works well but there’s a trade-off: many of our existing solvents come with an energy cost associated with heating the water for the removal of the CO2 to recover them. Ideally, we need processes that require less energy to capture and separate the CO2.

Dr. Ahmed AlHajaj, Assistant Professor, Hammed Balogun, Research Engineer, Dr. Daniel Bahamon, Research Scientist, Saeed Almenhali, Master student, and Prof. Lourdes Vega, all from the Khalifa University Research and Innovation Center on CO2 and Hydrogen (RICH), developed a systematic tool uses various key performance indicators such as energy consumption and cost to screen novel adsorbents operating at a commercial scale, while maintaining the US Department of Energy requirements of 95 percent CO2 purity and 90 percent CO2 capture rate. They published their results in the prestigious journal.

“There have been many previous attempts to assess the technical performance of adsorbents using experimental and modelling approaches,” Dr. AlHajaj explained. “Ours goes further by considering non-monetized factors including the purity of the captured CO2 as well as the quantity captured, and the energy required for the whole process at commercial scale.”

The team used molecular simulations to generate missing experimental data on the efficacy of the adsorptive material – how much it could adsorb – and a dynamic process model to simultaneously determine its economic potential.

Then, they selected the five most promising candidates for the detailed assessment at industrial carbon capture conditions. These five materials included a zeolite, three metal organic frameworks (MOFs), and activated carbon, all of which were evaluated for capturing CO2 from the flue gas of an industrial coal-fired power plant. The materials were examined for their performance in terms of CO2 purity, CO2 capture rate, productivity, energy consumption, and unit cost of CO2 captured at a commercial scale.

Flue gas is the by-product gas that leaves a fossil fuel power plant via a chimney known as a flue. While its composition depends on the fuel being burned, it mostly comprises nitrogen, carbon dioxide, water vapor and a number of pollutants such as particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides. The ‘smoke’ seen pouring from these flues is not smoke at all, but the water vapor in the gas forming a cloud as it meets cooler air. Carbon dioxide is the second largest component of flue gas at around four to 25 percent, depending on the fuel source. It is sent to the atmosphere unless a carbon capture unit is used to separate it from the flue gas.

“Since the performance of a process can be altered when we scale it up, it was essential to evaluate these materials at commercial and industrial scales,” Prof. Vega said. “The zeolite was included as a comparison as it is already widely used in industry for air separation, where CO2 needs to be removed as an impurity. While one particular MOF performed as well as the traditional zeolite, the zeolite was still the best performing low-cost material, as it’s cheaper to synthesize than the MOF. A very relevant result is that other MOFs appear to be very good for CO2 capture when examined at lab scale using technical performance indicators, but fail when considered at industrial carbon capture conditions.”��

“This is very relevant in the search for the right materials for CO2 capture”, added Dr. AlHajaj. “Using the tool we have proposed to assess materials for carbon capture, including the right key performance indicators, will save time and economic efforts towards this goal.”

Zeolites are microporous materials commonly used as adsorbents and catalysts and are often considered “molecular sieves” as they can selectively sort molecules based primarily on a size exclusion process. However, they have limited capacity for CO2 capture and they are deactivated with water and other impurities. The best performing MOF would become a much more viable alternative if its production cost could be reduced. Hence the need for continued laboratory research on MOFs for use in carbon capture operations.

Jade Sterling
Science Writer
13 December 2021

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Researchers in the United Arab Emirates have developed and validated a tool for assessing the potential performance and economic viability of newly developed adsorbents for post-combustion CO₂��capture.

The tool, developed by��Ahmed Al Hajaj,��Lourdes Vega��and colleagues at the Khalifa University of Science and Technology, integrates molecular simulations with a dynamic process model. Molecular simulations generate adsorption data on the molecular level for screening materials, while the dynamic process model simultaneously optimises operating conditions and provides a technoeconomic analysis.

Read the rest of the article here:

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As the world’s leading energy organization reports the radical steps needed to reach net zero emissions by 2050, SVP Research and Development Dr. Steve Griffiths discusses the prospects for the oil-producing GCC countries in a webinar hosted by The Middle East Institute.

By Dr. Steve Griffiths

In May 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) published a on a pathway to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Among the many proposals in the report is the call to immediately end new investments in oil and gas exploration and development. Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economies still depend heavily on oil and gas for their national income, despite economic diversification initiatives over the last several years. How credible is the IEA pathway to Net Zero by 2050 and how will this affect the oil-producing countries in the GCC?

In the 1800s, we went through a period where we were a society based on biomass, then the industrial revolution followed and we switched to coal for a new form of energy. Finally, in the last few decades, coal, oil and gas have become the dominant sources of energy with the proliferation of hydrocarbons, but of course, renewable energy sources have appeared as well. We are seeing sustainability coming into play and as it does, we have to ask the question: what’s going to happen over the next 80 years as we see the end of the ‘oil age’, particularly as we work on limiting the emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels?

The current thinking is it would be much better for the planet to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, because when you get to 2 degrees, the climate issues we’re seeing now will simply be exacerbated. The 2050 dialogue is now on the table, and this creates a discussion about how quickly we can move towards mitigating or eliminating our emissions.

The sustainable development scenario is essentially a net zero solution, but with a postponed deadline: global CO2 emissions from the energy sector and industrial processes would need to fall by more than 70 percent by 2050 to be on track for net-zero by 2070. This would limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels.

A shorter timescale, and the one recommended by the recent IEA report,, would see global CO2 emissions reduced to net-zero by 2050, falling around 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030. This would, with high probability, limit global warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels.

It’s pretty ambitious to aim for Net Zero by 2050, since to see a more than 40 percent decrease in our CO2 emissions by 2030, which is what the pathway suggests, would require a massive change in the way we use and view energy.

There are many net-zero scenarios and the oil and gas sector is heavily impacted in each. All these scenarios have a fairly similar trajectory for oil and gas, and if we follow a Net Zero 2050 pathway, we’ve already hit peak oil.

To reach net zero by 2050, there will need to be a 70 percent reduction from 2020 to 2050 with oil demand never exceeding 100 million barrels a day. In fact, along this trajectory, we’ll see a rapid decline in oil demand, dropping sharply over the next three decades to 25 million barrels a day. On the same path, natural gas is yet to see its peak, but that’ll happen within this decade. With a more gradual decline to 2050 than oil, demand for natural gas will fall off by 40 percent.

OPEC is particularly well situated in the IEA Net Zero scenario with more than half the market share; if you’re a Middle Eastern country producing oil, the situation looks pretty good, so to speak. However, even if you’re still a producer with more than 50 percent market share, you have to consider the impact the reduced demand will have on revenues as diminished demand impacts oil prices. The challenge we’re going to face here is that the economic structures of the GCC countries are generally not compatible with a Net Zero world. While they have made some positive progress in economic diversification between 2010 and 2020, they are still heavily reliant on hydrocarbons for government revenues, exports, and economic activity. Among the GCC countries, the UAE is perhaps best positioned but also needs to make further progress. As it stands, this region, and many others, are not ready to jump straight into a Net Zero world trajectory.

Net Zero by 2050 assumes a very rapid global shift in energy consumption patterns, with a precipitous drop in demand for oil in particular. To follow this IEA recommendation, we would need to stop developing new oil fields immediately, with any new investment directed to maintaining production at existing fields. Likewise for natural gas, all investment would be used to sustain existing production to meet residual demand in the future.

However, many are still assuming that oil demand by 2030 will largely follow a trajectory based on current and announced government policies focused on climate and sustainability. This, coupled with the fact that a number of countries that are heavy energy consumers, such as India, are rejecting a rapid decarbonization trajectory indicates a good chance that demand for oil will increase by 2030. Confirming this notion, consulting firm Wood Makenzie announced recently that they foresee a 2030 oil demand supply gap of about 20 million barrels per day. This is not to say that Net Zero by 2050 is completely out of the question, but it’s unlikely given the fact that the need for increased oil production in the coming decade is a very real possibility.

However, while Net Zero by 2050 is debatable, planning for Net Zero is nonetheless important. There will be a net zero: maybe not by 2050, but someday it’s going to happen, and the low-cost hydrocarbon producers will be the ones that survive or at least last the longest.

When oil demand decreases, which it inevitably will, oil prices will fall and this will lead many oil-producing countries to have uneconomical or stranded oil reserves. If the asking price for a barrel of oil falls below the cost of production, countries will find themselves with oil reserves they cannot exploit without incurring a loss. Therefore, oil demand in the future will be optimally met by low-cost, low-carbon producers located in economies that can remain viable when faced with reduced income from oil and gas exports, such as the GCC producers.

In planning for net zero, companies in the oil and gas industry need to consider strategies involving reducing production costs, moving downstream into refining and petrochemical production, or investing in low-carbon energy, transitioning from ‘oil and gas’ companies to ‘energy’ companies. The strategy that players in this industry will pick is context dependent. National oil companies (NOCs) need to monetize their oil and gas reserves to the extent possible, and selected NOCs have downstream opportunities to explore. Many of these companies with downstream integration, which are located in the Middle East, and particularly in the GCC, can pursue potential long-term opportunities in refining and petrochemicals. Qatar in particular will bet on long-term demand for low-carbon natural gas, particularly LNG, and its derivative. It is expected that under any future scenario in which demand for oil remains, GCC countries will be prominent producers and gain market share, partly due to the low geopolitical risk in the region.

In the long-term, GCC national oil companies will pursue greener oil and gas production while also looking towards low-carbon energy sources that fit with Net Zero ambitions but align with core competencies. In this vein, hydrogen, particularly blue hydrogen, which is hydrogen produced primarily from steam methane reforming coupled with carbon capture, is an opportunity consistent with Net Zero pathways. Qatar, for example, is likely to focus on low-carbon gas supply for the production of blue hydrogen elsewhere, while Saudi Arabia, and perhaps the UAE, may produce blue hydrogen locally and export it or additionally see opportunities for importing and storing CO2 from blue hydrogen production abroad. Hydrogen is a core element of the IEA Net Zero plan, and the GCC countries are poised to produce and export blue hydrogen, its derivatives, and natural gas for hydrogen production elsewhere. However, finding the right business cases for the options to pursue is the current challenge.

As the IEA report says, reaching net zero by 2050 “requires nothing short of a total transformation of the energy systems that underpin our economies.” While 2050 is an ambitious goal, Net Zero will happen eventually and the global energy transition will, over time, reduce dependency on fossil energy sources. It’s clear that oil producers and exporters will increasingly face economic challenges as the transition unfolds but various strategies exist for continued prospects for GCC national oil companies in a Net Zero world. Gas producers and exporters are expected to have opportunities in low-carbon gases, particularly hydrogen, but hydrogen exports will not make up for long-term decline in oil export rents. The economic diversification initiatives currently underway in the region must continue.

Even as the world pursues decarbonization and emission reduction technologies in the pursuit of Net Zero, oil and gas will continue to play a role in many energy systems. It’s clear that oil and gas must be a part of the broader net zero conversation.��

Dr. Steve Griffiths is the Senior Vice President of Research and Development and Professor of Practice at Khalifa University.

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By Dr. Ludovic �ٳܳ�é��

Dr. Ludovic �ٳܳ�é�� , Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Khalifa University, outlines the strategies and technologies that could be deployed to turn CO2 emissions into a resilient circular economy.

Read Arabic story .

The continuous emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is the leading cause of climate change and subsequent extreme weather events.

In 2015, the international community adopted the Paris Climate Agreement, agreeing to limit the global average rise in temperature to less than 2° C, compared to pre-industrial levels, but with ambitions to limit the rise to less than 1.5° C. Along with a paradigm shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, deployment of carbon capture and storage technologies was proposed as a core strategy to actively and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is in addition to the clear economic benefit that could be derived from using CO2 as a feedstock material for chemical products in a resilient circular economy.

While research into CO2 capture technologies is gaining traction, research into integrated capture and conversion strategies – which involves capturing CO2 at its source and effectively transforming the CO2 into value-added chemicals within the same chemical process – has received significantly less attention.

With my colleagues from Deakin University in Australia, including Dr. James Maina, Prof. Jennifer Pringle and Prof. Joselito Razal, and Dr. Suzana Nunes from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, Dr. Fausto Gallucci from Eindhoven University of Technology in Netherlands, and Dr. Lourdes Vega, Director of Khalifa University’s Research and Innovation Center on CO2 and Hydrogen (RICH), we published a review paper in the journal to assess recent advances in the integrated capture and conversion of CO2 from industry gases and atmospheric air.

Carbon capture and storage technologies (CSS) have been demonstrated across a number of pilot operations globally and typically include capturing CO2 from emission sources such as power plants, followed by compression prior to transportation to long-term storage sites. Although CSS technologies are viable for the capture of CO2 from large sources at high concentration levels, such as fossil fuel power plants or cement factories, they are not practical for small and distributed sources, such as transportation and residential heating, which cumulatively account for around half of all CO2 emissions.

For these cases, technologies that can extract CO2 directly from the atmosphere are needed if the associated carbon emissions are to be mitigated. These are direct air capture technologies (DAC) and they have some distinct advantages over traditional carbon capture technologies, including not needing to be located close to emission sources, which makes them deployable to any location around the world. However, since there is a much lower concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere compared to that available in the by-product gas from industrial plants, DAC is much more costly and energy intensive.

Associated with carbon capture and storage is carbon capture and utilization (CCU) where the CO2 captured from various sources is put back to work as a raw material. While CCU is most often associated with Enhanced Oil Recovery, CO2 can also produce valuable chemicals and fuels, which may be marketed to generate revenue and offset the expenses associated with the capture process. With a suitable catalyst, CO2 can be converted into a wide variety of products, including acids, monomers and carbon nanomaterials.

The potential for developing profitable businesses from products generated from CO2 is evidenced by the large number of recent start-up companies. The annual methanol market, for example, is expected to reach US$91.5 billion by 2026 and since methanol can be made from hydrogen and CO2, this represents a significant opportunity.

However, to further minimize energy requirements and eliminate the risk of secondary CO2 emissions, new, sustainable and energy efficient materials and processes that capture and convert CO2 emissions from the air directly need to be developed.

In our paper, we recommend that conversion reactions be carried out using renewable energy and that any chemicals and catalyst materials be produced using sustainable methods. Otherwise, CO2 derived products won’t have a low carbon footprint compared to fossil-fuel derived products. To highlight this, the generation of methanol from a reaction between CO2 and hydrogen generated by reforming of natural gas was found to release three times more CO2 than the conventional industrial production technique. But when the same reaction was carried out with hydrogen generated from wind power, there was a 58 percent reduction in emissions.

There is great potential in the scale-up and commercialization of capture and conversion technologies, but there are also key technological challenges hindering the advancement of this field that research can help overcome. Research and development carried out in the RICH Center at Khalifa University is tackling some of these challenges from a different angle.��

Dr. Ludovic �ٳܳ�é�� is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Khalifa University and a faculty member of the Research and Innovation Center on CO2 and Hydrogen (RICH).��

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Eight researchers from Masdar Institute’s Chemical and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department presented four papers and four posters at the 13th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT), held earlier this month in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The prestigious conference attracted over 1,100 delegates and facilitated networking opportunities among leading scientists involved in carbon capture and storage (CCS) research to accelerate the development of deployment-ready CCS technologies. Such technologies are expected to play a significant role in reducing the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the harmful, heat-trapping greenhouse gas responsible for warming the planet – in the atmosphere.

The team included CEE Department Head and Associate Professor Dr. Mohammad Abu Zahra, Associate Professor Dr. Enas Nashef, Post-Doctoral Researcher Dang Viet Quang, PhD student Abdallah Dindi, MSc students Abdullah Al Hinai, Vinicius Bueno and Adetola Ogungbenro, and Iman Ustadi, a Class of 2014 MSc in Engineering Systems and Management alumna and current process engineer at the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).

The research presented by the MI team focused on various post-combustion and oxy-fuel combustion technologies for capturing CO2 from the smokestacks of the fossil fuel-fired power plants that emit them and burying that captured CO2 underground. Some of the research also focuses on using captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery, or to produce industrial chemicals, fuels and other high-value products.

CCS technologies have the potential to trap up to 90% of CO2 emissions from power stations and industrial sites, and are positioned to help developed and developing nations achieve their targeted greenhouse gas emissions reductions. However, current CCS technologies are expensive and therefore not economically viable unless coupled with ways of profitably using the captured CO2. That is why MI researchers are developing CCS technologies that are more affordable as well as technologies that can turn the captured CO2 into marketable products that can offset the high costs of CO2 capture.

As a regional expert in the development of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies, Dr. Abu Zahra acted as a member of the conference technical program committee and chaired five of the conference’s technical sessions, including the sessions on Solid Sorbents, Liquid Biphasic Solvents, Solvent and Configuration Modelling, Alternative Solvents, and Solvents Properties.

Ustadi co-authored two of the papers presented at the GHGT conference. The first, titled “The Effect of CCS Technology Deployment on the Natural Gas Market in the UAE,” reveals that if 60% and 90% CO2 is captured and used for enhanced oil recovery, a net amount of 5.32 and 21.16 million metric tons of natural gas will be saved yearly, respectively.

Ustadi’s second paper, titled “Potential for Hybrid-Cooling System for the CO2 Post-Combustion Capture Technology,” explored different cooling technologies that would reduce a CCS system’s energy and cooling water demand, including a hybrid cooling approach that uses a steam condenser, which was found to be cheaper than using a water cooler and only marginally more expensive than a traditional air cooler.

Bueno co-authored a paper titled, “The Evaluation of Oxy-Fuel Combustion Deployment at the Mirfa Plant in UAE,” in which he explored the opportunity to use the waste oxygen produced at Abu Dhabi’s Mirfa Plant – a co-generation water and power plant – for a more energy-efficient form of carbon capture. In oxy-fuel combustion, pure oxygen is combusted with the fossil fuel, producing only CO2 and water and as a result, simplifying the CO2 separation. Producing pure oxygen is an expensive, energy-intensive process, which is why re-using the waste oxygen from the Mirfa plant would significantly reduce the cost of oxy-fuel combustion.

In a paper co-authored by Al Hinai, titled “Amine-Blends Screening and Characterization for CO2 Post-Combustion Capture,” he explores how to use multiple amines to absorb CO2, to increase amines’ CO2 absorption capacity and to reduce the amount of heat required to release the CO2 from the sorbent.

Dindi presented a poster, titled “Performance of Activated Fly Ash Impregnated with PEI for CO2 Post-Combustion Capture.” He described his research on the development of a low-cost solid adsorbent material (a chemical compound that adsorbs CO2) made from a waste material, like fly ash, which is the ash by-product produced when coal is burned.

Ogungbenro presented a poster on the ability to use local date seeds as a feedstock for generating activated carbon – a material with excellent adsorption (the ability for CO2 to stick to a material so that it can be subsequently removed). In his paper, titled “Activated Carbon from Date Seeds for CO2 Capture Applications,” Ogungbenro explained how the local date seed has good CO2 adsorption capacity.

Quang presented the poster, “The combination of CO2 Utilization and Solid Sorbent Preparation in One Step Process,” in which he proposed a simple, one-step process for synthesizing a novel solid adsorbent chemical compound for efficient CO2 capture.

Dr. Nashef presented a poster, titled “Novel Green Solvents for CO2 Capture” that explains the work of PhD student Idowu Adeyemi on using environmentally-friendly novel solvents for the capture of CO2. These novel solvents have several advantages compared to the amine-based aqueous solutions, including low volatility, no degradation, higher thermal stability, and lower energy consumption. In addition, these novel solvents can be easily prepared from commercially available, low-cost compounds.

The Masdar Institute team’s CCS research responds to critical environmental challenges in the UAE and wider world. Natural gas-fired power and water desalination plants are responsible for more than one-third of UAE’s CO2 emissions. While across the globe, greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels still power nearly 93% of power stations and industrial plants, venting high levels of CO2 into the atmosphere every day.

Through its pioneering research, Masdar Institute is becoming a regional leader in the effort to develop sustainable CCUS solutions needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with the aim of limiting global temperature increase to less than 2° Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels.

Held once every two years, the GHGT conference series has established itself as the principal international conference on greenhouse gas mitigation technologies, especially on CCS.

Erica Solomon
News and Features Writer
29 November 2016

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University Announces Key Research Collaborations as Faculty Led Knowledge-Sharing Sessions across Various WFES 2019 Platforms

His Highness Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chief, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince’s Court, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Khalifa University, and His Excellency Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment, visited the Khalifa University stand at the World Future Energy Forum 2019 that was held from 14 – 17 January as part of the Abu Dhabi Sustainable Week (ADSW) 2019 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center (ADNEC). The event brought together investors and service providers in the global sustainability sector.

Khalifa University showcased a total of five sustainable concepts in research innovation at the event. The university also announced key research collaborations with local and international organizations, marking its prime role advancing new solutions and technologies in the renewable energy and sustainable technologies areas.

The four-day WFES, inaugurated on 14 January focused on the intellectual leadership of sustainability while facilitating partnerships between innovators and investors in energy platforms, climate change, water and the future of mobility, space, bio-technology and technology sectors.

Some of the projects that were featured at the Khalifa University stand (Hall 4; Booth A401) include advance material for CO2 capture, the Masdar Institute Solar Platform, the Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium’s (SBRC) flagship Seawater Energy and Agriculture System (SEAS) project and its path-breaking commercial flight with biofuel, conversion of waste cooking oil to biodiesel in the UAE and a condition monitoring system with multi-agent mechanism for external non-contact smart inspection of buried oil and gas pipelines.

Dr. Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, Executive Vice-President, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, said: “For Khalifa University, the premier gathering of the global sustainability sector at World Future Energy Summit 2019 offers the perfect platform to interact with energy industry leaders and explore potential collaborations. It is also an occasion to highlight Masdar Institute’s research accomplishments and showcase its capabilities in clean energy and sustainable technologies for the benefit of the international corporate majors. We believe this year’s participation in WFES activities will give us the impetus to further advance our research and innovation expertise in areas such as energy storage, mobility, solar, energy efficiency, waste-to-energy, water and environment, advanced materials, as well as carbon capture to help increase the contribution of clean energy to the UAE’s total energy mix in an efficient, safe and economical manner.”

Additionally, Khalifa University higher officials and faculty lead knowledge exchange across various WFES platforms. Dr Steve Griffiths, Senior Vice-President for Research and Development and Professor of Practice, Khalifa University, shared his perspectives in a session titled ‘In Conversation: The foreign relations of energy transition – positioning the Gulf’ at the Energy Forum.

Dr. Steve Griffiths said: “Khalifa University is proud to showcase new technologies at the World Future Energy Summit, which has gathered leaders across key technology and sustainability platforms that include artificial intelligence, energy, environment, water, health and space. These leaders are contributing to knowledge exchange, highlighting innovations and advancing solutions to global challenges in sustainability. We believe participation in this year’s summit effectively showcases Khalifa University’s capabilities in research, development and innovation across the sustainability spectrum.”

Dr. Nicolas Calvet, Assistant Professor, College of Engineering, and Chair of the Masdar Institute Solar Platform – Khalifa University, is speaking about concentrated solar power (CSP) industry during a session titled ‘’ at the Solar Forum. Dr. Mohammad Abu Zahra, Associate Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, and his team are presenting their work on advance materials for CO2 capture, including three individual projects.

Clarence Michael
News Writer
16 January 2019

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