CLUSTER – Impacts of impurities in captured CO₂ streams from different emitters of a local cluster on transport, injection and storage

Begin of project: July 1, 2015

End of project: June 30, 2018

Status of project: January 1, 2016

Source: BGR

Depending on individual generation process and capture technology, captured CO₂ streams at power plants or industrial sources (e.g. steel or cement works) contain varying concentrations of different impurities, such as SO_x, NO_x, H₂S, CO or O₂. The joint research project CLUSTER focusses on potential impacts of these impurities in CCS clusters. The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) with approximately 3.9 million Euros. The project aims at developing criteria and recommendations for definitions of CO₂ quality specifications based on §§ 24 and 33 of the German CCS law (KSpG), in order to facilitate access to a joint transport and storage infrastructure in a transparent and non-discriminatory manner. To achieve that, we investigate how variations in composition and mass flow of merged CO₂ streams captured at different emitters affect the entire CCS process chain. In a model scenario a representative regional cluster of different CO₂ sources is considered in which individually captured CO₂ streams are fed into one trunk line, transported and injected into a geological CO₂ reservoir. Amongst other things, the impacts of different CO₂-stream compositions on corrosion of plant parts, pipeline steel and wellbore cements and on alteration of reservoir rocks will be investigated.

CLUSTER team at project kick-off meeting Source: BGR

BGR studies comprise i) potential effects of temporally varying CO₂-stream compositions on processes within the storage reservoir that may influence injectivity and ii) potential deformations of the Earth’s surface due to fluctuating CO₂ injection. On the one hand, processes that potentially influence injectivity will be assessed and evaluated based on reactive transport simulations. On the other hand, laboratory batch and flow-through experiments will be conducted in order to analyze fluid-rock reactions as well as to study dissolution behavior of CO₂ and impurities into different brines. Forecasts for potential deformations of the Earth’s surface will be performed based on coupled thermal-hydraulic-mechanical (THM) simulations. These deformations of the Earth’s surface could be triggered by changes in the subsurface stress regime as a consequence of CO₂ injection.

Homepage of the project:: www.bgr.bund.de/CLUSTER-EN

Partner:

BAM Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und ‐prüfung, Berlin (BAM)

DBI Gas‐ und Umwelttechnik GmbH, Leipzig (DBI)

Eurotechnica GmbH, Bargteheide (ET)

Martin‐Luther‐Universität Halle‐Wittenberg, Institut für Geowissenschaften, Halle (MLU)

Technische Universität Clausthal, Institut für Erdöl‐ und Erdgastechnik, Clausthal‐Zellerfeld (TUC)

Technische Universität Hamburg, Institut für Energietechnik, Hamburg (TUHH)