CMC CO2lloquium: De-risking solid sorbents for carbon capture

WHO: Dr. George Shimizu, Professor, University of Calgary, Department of Chemistry

DATE: Friday, October 28, 2016

TIME: 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. MDT

LOCATION: Rm. C128, CMC Research Institutes,
University Research Centre, 3535 Research Road NW, Calgary, AB

RSVP: joan.smart@cmcghg.com, 403 210-7104 – space is limited.

The wish list of desired properties for a candidate material for commercial carbon capture includes many items. Some features can be considered in absolute terms such as cost, durability, scalability, and safety. Other desirable qualities cannot be considered in absolute terms although they often are. Intuitively, for a given material, higher capacity for CO2 and higher selectivity for CO2 would certainly seem to improve performance.  However, both these parameters are tied to the material’s affinity for CO2, meaning increasing capacity and selectivity both increase with stronger bonding to CO2. Stronger binding to CO2 directly and proportionally increases the energy needed to release the CO2. In other words, higher capacity and selectivity bring higher costs of regeneration.

The use of porous solids, such as zeolites and carbons, in gas separations is well established and they are incorporated in pressure and temperature swing sorption processes. The pore structures and molecular surface properties in a solid determine its affinity for CO2 as well as competing species in the gas such as N2, water and acid gases. It is possible to design solids that have very different affinities for gases so as to be able to find a middle ground that balances efficient capture with facile regeneration.

What is an MOF?

A MOF is an infinite network of metal ions or metal ion clusters bridged by organic linkers into a porous structure. As could be expected, the range of potential structures encompassed by this area is vast as different structures and properties can be obtained not only by the choice of metal and linker but also by the connectivity of the structure. A key feature of MOFs is that they are crystalline (ordered) so X-ray diffraction experiments can be performed to give exact structural information and insights to designing/improving the material. Using this approach, the Shimizu group has made new MOFs that show a balance of CO2 capture and regeneration. The presentation will discuss the de-risking of these materials in terms of water stability, ability to capture in wet gas streams, acid gas stability, ability to be regenerated and testing beyond the lab scale.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Shimizu is a Professor in the University of Calgary, Department of Chemistry.

George Shimizu received his BSc from the University of Winnipeg (1989) and a PhD from the University of Windsor (1993). He was an NSERC postdoctoral fellow at the University of Birmingham (1995-96) and a Research Associate (1997-98) at the Steacie Institute of the National Research Council before joining the faculty at the University of Calgary (1998).

His research concerns the development of new porous solids with highly tunable structures with targets of gas storage/separation materials (particularly CO2 capture) and new proton conductors for fuel cells. He has given more than 90 invited, keynote and plenary talks nationally and internationally. Shimizu has received the Canadian Society for Chemistry’s Strem Award for Pure or Applied Inorganic Chemistry (2008), a Discovery Grant Accelerator Supplement from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada (2008) and a Faculty of Science Research Excellence Award (2010). He is a member of the International Zeolite Association Committee on Metal Organic Frameworks.