An advanced solvent for post-combustion carbon capture developed through a partnership involving the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) and Honeywell is set for engineering-scale testing in October at the Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM), the world’s largest carbon capture test facility located in western Norway.

The new technology is an advanced solvent designed to capture carbon dioxide (CO₂) found in flue gases generated from power, steel, cement and other industrial plants. The technology is the product of a multi-year cooperative agreement that was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management and managed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL).

Engineering-scale testing enables technology developers to understand the technical and performance risks of the technology and validate scaling factors that will enable design of future commercial-scale systems.

In the technology to be tested, CO₂ is absorbed into an amine solvent and then sent to a stripper where it is separated from the solvent. This CO₂ would then be compressed for geological sequestration or used for other purposes. The technology is designed to be retrofitted within existing plants or included as part of a new installation.

The engineering-scale testing of the solvent technology beginning in October builds upon successful pilot-scale testing performed at the National Carbon Capture Center in 2023 and at UT Austin’s Separations Research Program plant in 2022. That testing totaled approximately 7,000 hours.

The lessons learned through long-term field tests, along with complementary bench-scale studies on mitigating solvent oxidation, has led to a technology solution to capture 95% of a facility’s CO₂ emissions while managing non-CO₂ emissions and reducing operating costs and environmental impacts relative to state-of-the-art carbon capture approaches.