Supervisor: Prof. Stefano Brandani, University of Edinburgh
PhD Student: David Bocciardo, University of Edinburgh
Status: Closed
The proposed research programme addresses three main challenges:
1. Carbon capture and storage technologies are being developed and in few cases full demonstration will be carried out in the next decade. Given the scale of the processes involved, it is essential to improve the level at which we can predict the performance
and integrate the separation of CO2 within a power plant. To achieve this collaboration between industrial practitioners and academic research groups is highly valuable and will allow improved understanding of the process configurations that are more efficient
and that can be implemented more easily.
2. While most of the current research on carbon capture is focussed on steady state studies, a key technological challenge is to start developing models that can address dynamic behaviour. This is very important even in current conditions, but will become
increasingly essential once the UK moves to a higher proportion of electricity generation from renewable sources, which are intrinsically variable in time. Flexibility in process operation will be a key design requirement.
3. Mixed Matrix Membranes are novel materials which combine the ease of fabrication of polymeric membranes with the improved selectivity and mass transfer properties of nanoporous materials, such as zeolites, nanoporous carbons and metal organic
frameworks. Most of the studies reported in the literature show promising values of both permeability and selectivity in MMMs, but these are often performed on test membranes that are typically 100 microns in thickness. This length scale is much greater than that of the particles, so a pseudo-homogeneous model can be used to predict the behaviour from the properties of the constituent materials. The scientific challenge is to predict what happens when the membranes are formed as very thin layers, typically 100 nm or less. In this case the particles will have a size that is similar to that of the membrane thickness and a more detailed model is needed to predict the
performance of the membrane and also to assess the effect of defects in the link between the polymer and the particles.