Negative CO2 emissions through combining bio-energy and carbon capture

Supervisors: Professor Mohamed Pourkashanian, Professor Lin Ma and Dr Kevin Hughes.

Stringent CO2 emission reduction targets that are now in effect mean that the carbon intensity of energy generation from all sources needs to be considerably reduced in order to meet such goals. The use of biomass fuels - either dedicated biomass firing or co-firing with fossil fuels, such as coal - can considerably minimise the net CO2 emissions to atmosphere from conventional energy generation processes, ie combustion.

Coupling biomass utilisation with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies could mean the CO2 emissions from such forms of energy production are further reduced and even have the potential to lead to zero or negative emissions. This project will aim to compare different fuel resources (coal, wood chips and co-firing these two fuels) in terms of their carbon intensity and techno-economics, when used with and without CCS applications.

A large-scale power facility will be modelled using the IECM and Aspen packages to achieve the project objectives, with input data and other parameters being acquired from the literature review conducted.

For further information contact Professor Derek B Ingham (d.ingham@sheffield.ac.uk).