Abstract – TCCS-12: “AURORA – ACCELERATED DEPLOYMENT OF INTEGRATED CCUS CHAINS BASED ON SOLVENT CAPTURE TECHNOLOGY”

by | Sep 7, 2023

AURORA, short for “Accelerated Deployment of Integrated CCUS Chains Based on Solvent Capture Technology”, is a major research and innovation project funded under the Horizon Europe program. Launched in January 2023, the project runs for three and a half years and brings together partners from six European countries: Norway, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Italy, and Greece.

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The Need for Solvent-Based Carbon Capture

Industries that emit large amounts of CO₂, such as refining, cement, and materials recycling, require rapidly scalable and cost-effective carbon capture technologies to achieve climate goals. Solvent-based carbon capture is one of the most promising solutions because it is:

  • Adaptable to various emission sources.
  • Capable of achieving high capture rates and delivering CO₂ with high purity.
  • Relatively energy efficient compared to other technologies.

AURORA’s Innovations and Goals

The AURORA project aims to optimize and demonstrate the use of the open, non-proprietary CESAR1 solvent technology for commercial deployment. CESAR1, which is a blend of AMP and PZ, will serve as the new benchmark solvent, replacing older options like MEA. The project focuses on three CO₂-intensive industries: refining, cement production, and materials recycling—industries for which few decarbonization alternatives exist.

Demonstration Across Multiple Sites

The AURORA project will integrate these innovations into four optimized capture processes, which will be demonstrated at three pilot plants of varying sizes and complexity:

  • SINTEF’s Tiller pilot (Norway): A medium-scale facility for testing and validation.
  • ACC’s mobile test unit: A flexible and portable system.
  • Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM): A large-scale demonstration plant, offering real-world operational insights.

The diversity of these pilot plants allows AURORA to validate its technology under different conditions, enhancing its credibility for future deployment.

To ensure that the results benefit other CO₂-intensive industries, AURORA will conduct full assessments of the carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) chain for its industrial end-users. The project focuses on two European regions—Belgium and Greece—which offer unique conditions for implementing CCUS value chains. This regional focus will demonstrate the transferability of AURORA’s solutions to other industries and locations, further accelerating the adoption of solvent-based carbon capture across Europe.

By optimizing CESAR1 technology and demonstrating its capabilities in real industrial settings, the AURORA project aims to revolutionize CO₂ capture in energy-intensive sectors. Through innovative process design, energy efficiency improvements, and strong collaboration among partners, AURORA is paving the way for the accelerated deployment of CCUS technologies, helping industries move closer to climate neutrality.

Closing Knowledge Gaps – Density and Viscosity of Unloaded and CO2-loaded Aqueous AMP-PZ blends  

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AURORA’s latest scientific journal publication provides experimental density and viscosity data on different unloaded and CO2-loaded aqueous blends of  2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol (AMP) and piperazine (PZ) used for absorption-based CO2 capture. The paper also provides correlations for density and viscosity suitable for various modelling works.In our previous review article, we identified knowledge…