Carbon capture scheme launched in Hull

Professor Meihong Wang, and his Process and Energy Systems Engineering research team is involved in a series of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) research projects across the country to find ways to capture industrial CO2 and reduce the amount in the atmosphere, in line with binding targets agreed by the UK Government.

Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas and responsible for the increase in average global temperatures, which has resulted in rising sea levels as well as a dramatic increase in the frequency, intensity and duration of floods, droughts and heat waves.

In 2015 a special call was put out by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for proposals to capture CO2 from industry, with £4m available.

Recently EPSRC announced the outcome and the University of Hull is involved in two successful consortium projects, out of four in the whole country, each worth nearly £1m. Researchers believe that industry is deterred by inefficiencies and cost implications of traditional systems and research into these systems will allow the process of capturing carbon to be more effective and cost effective.

In the past, the focus for capturing CO2 has been on that from fossil fuel-fired power plants. However, 25 per cent of European CO2 emissions comes from industrial processes such as oil refineries and steel plants.

Professor Wang said: “Capturing carbon from industrial processes is very costly and provides a different challenge to the process for capturing carbon from power plants. The hope is, we find the most suitable method of industrial carbon capture and tell policy makers how much it would cost to capture.”