Solid-Sorbent Carbon Capture

Carbon capture and conversion technologies are being developed nationwide as part of the plan for a sustainable energy future. Carbon capture is the separation of CO2 from the exhaust gas of a power plant or directly from atmosphere (direct air capture, DAC). Conversion of CO2 is the conversion of CO2 to value added products such as chemicals, fuels, plastics and building materials. Our research focuses on modeling carbon capture reactors, exploring novel material systems for CO2 capture and conversion, and integrating machine learning with physical models for faster, accurate predictions of system performance.

Modeling these multiphase, multiphysics systems can be very difficult due to their unsteady and unpredictable nature. High-resolution methods, such as direct numerical simulation, can accurately model these systems, but are limited to very small time and length scales. Medium-resolution methods, shown below (left), employ simplifying assumptions and are capable of modeling systems of larger scale; however, full-scale simulations are typically computationally intractable, especially in three-dimensions. Low-resolution methods make use of sub-grid models to approximate the unresolved physics using constitutive relations. While these assumptions reduce the ability to predict fine-scale behavior, they can predict bulk flow behavior of full-scale simulations efficiently.

Relevant Publications

Back