The US Department of Energy has awarded a US$15m grant to Linde Group to pioneer the advancement of carbon capture technologies, with the pilot plant in Wilsonville, Alabama, aiming to be up and running by early 2014.
The facility will test novel CO2 scrubbing solutions to reduce the energy consumption and costs of advanced carbon capture and separation systems for coal-fired power plants.
“Advanced CO2 capture for power plants is a critical element in achieving global greenhouse gas emission reduction targets,” said Dr Andreas Opfermann, head of Linde’s Clean Energy and Innovation Management unit.
Pointing to North America’s “growing need for efficient, clean coal solutions”, Opfermann said the pilot plant will be designed to capture at least 90pc of the CO2 generated at an increase in the cost of electricity of no more than 35pc.
Linde today said its carbon-capture technology would be a significant improvement over existing technologies, which it said can add as much as 80pc to the cost of electricity. The company also asserts that post-combustion capture technologies offer great near-term potential for reducing CO2 emissions because they can be added to existing power plants.
The new plant in Alabama will build on the experience Linde has gained from setting up a similar project in Niederaussem, Germany.
Since 2009, Linde has been testing new CO2 scrubbing solvents in collaboration with electricity supplier RWE and chemicals company BASF in Niederaussem.
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Linde HyCO plant (steamreformer) in Kazincbarcika, Hungary
History stretching over 132 years
Founded in Germany in 1879, the world’s largest pure-play industrial gases supplier Linde was built up by scientist and inventor Carl von Linde, who is best known for his pioneering refrigeration technology. Over the years, von Linde helped grow Linde into a leading plant engineering company, refrigerated building operator and gas producer.
In the 2010 financial year, Linde achieved sales of €12.8bn.
