Identification of the Safety and Integrity Challenges for Carbon Capture Systems Onboard Marine Vessels or Offshore Facilities
ABS and Texas A&M are working on safety and integrity for Carbon Capture Systems onboard marine vessels and offshore facilities. This work is clarifying the impact of CO₂ on materials used in equipment, piping, storage, and valves. It includes a focus on the implications of impurities such as NOx, SOx, and H₂S. The focus is on onboard storage and offloading implications and the safety implications and risks.
The work is led by Texas A&M Principal Investigators: Dr. Harini Gunda, Dr. Faisal Khan and Dr. Tanjin Amin and ABS Subject Matter Experts Quaim Choudhury, Senior Managing Pricipal Engineer – Energy Transition, and Altaf Shaik, Pricipal Engineer – Energy Transitionn, along with Texas A&M graduate student M. Elkady. The work is being conducted under a Texas A&M-ABS research agreement covering the Laboratory for Ocean Innovation.
Texas A&M has a deep bench of expertise on Carbon Capture – a topic that relates to the Chemistry Dept where they are looking at CO₂-capturing metal -organic frameworks (MOF), Chemical Engineering where they look at safety and handling and reaction implications, and Material Science Engineering because CO₂ and impurities influence material strength and fracture toughness.
This project includes a comprehensive literature review of the most suitable onboard carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) methods. It evaluates CO₂ behavior in various phases to determine suitable storage conditions and identifies potential hazards. While amine-based capture is widely used in land-based operations (with high efficiency and a Technology Readiness Level of 9), hybrid technologies combining solid adsorption and membrane separation may offer promise for marine environments.
Captured CO₂ is recommended to be stored in the liquid phase. The recommendations are independent pressure vessels with suitable materials selected based on temperature for storing CO₂. The five utilization pathways, hydrogenation, ammoniation, polymerization, mineralization, and enzymatic conversion, have been studied.
Polymerization and enzymatic conversion are two possible options which should be further investigated. Pure CO₂ presents various hazards, including high liquid-gas expansion and potential solid phase formation during rapid depressurization. Threats posed by impurities to pipelines and accessories are important and it has been found that impurities significantly impact the service life of equipment. Also, the impurities can alter the phase diagram, which can affect the optimal storage condition.
The consequences of CO₂ release to onboard and seawater need to be understood by operators for establishing safe practices. While CO₂ has a lesser chance of chronic effect on living beings, a very concentrated instantaneous release (e.g., 40,000 ppm) can cause adverse health effects and death.