New CO2 capture technology to be tested in Japan
JGC, INPEX and BASF announced today that they have entered into an agreement to jointly carry out demonstration tests on a new technology for effectively capturing and recovering CO2 contained in natural gas. The tests are to be carried out starting in August at INPEX’s Koshijihara natural gas plant in Nagaoka, Japan.
Natural gas often contains CO2 when it is extracted from the well. Whether the natural gas is transported via pipelines, converted to liquefied natural gas (LNG) or used in chemical processes, the CO2 has to be captured beforehand. Even state-of-the-art CO2 capture processes require a large amount of energy and the removal facilities account for a major part of investment and operating costs.
JGC and BASF jointly began developing a new technology for a CO2 capture process called High Pressure Acid Gas Capture Technology (HiPACT) in 2004. Following basic research and a series of trials, the new technology shows a significantly higher CO2 absorption rate than existing processes and is capable of recovering CO2 under high-pressure conditions. An important milestone in this development is transferring the new technology to an operating gas processing facility.
The advantage of HiPACT technology is twofold: firstly, it reduces the overall power consumption of the facility and lowers investment costs. Moreover, because the CO2 is released from the solvent at well above atmospheric pressure there is a significant reduction in the amount of energy required if CO2 is used in high pressure applications such as chemical synthesis or sequestered underground.
Going forward with information from the test results, JGC and BASF will focus on the commercialization of HiPACT technology in all relevant sectors, for example in natural gas projects with CO2 reinjection. INPEX will aim at further energy savings at its natural gas plants by using the HiPACT technology.
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