Name: (Ismail, Mohamed Ashraf)

Biographical notes:

B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Military Technical College in Egypt in 1992.

Worked as a mechanical engineer in the Armed Forces for 9 years, then, worked in the industry for another 6 years and finally doing my master in UOA.

Project Title: (Conceptual study on the feasibility of deep ocean carbon capture and storage in the Antarctica)

Motivation

Carbon dioxide is the major contributor of GHG as it represents about 80%. Level of CO2 in preindustrial age was 280 ppm while it is now 380 ppm and expected to reach 500 ppm by the end of this century. More than 38% is due to transportation, residential and other small sources which can’t be captured by conventional direct CCS systems. Furthermore, air capture is the only available technology that can capture past emissions.

Limits

Zeolite is a competitive candidate for capturing carbon dioxide by adsorption; however, its aggressiveness to adsorb water is a great challenge. Moreover, CO₂ low concentration is another challenge.

Objective

Study the feasibility of capturing carbon dioxide from air and transporting it in order to be sequestered in the deep ocean with a low cost.

Methodology

Antarctica was chosen because it’s the driest continent on the planet. A system was proposed and broken down into 3 subsystems nuclear power plant, capturing plant and transportation & storage system. Each system will be studied to stand on the capital costs, operating and maintenance costs in addition to the logistics involved so that cost of CO₂ captured can be calculated in terms of dollars per ton CO₂ captured. ($/ ton CO₂). A nuclear power plant was proposed as a source for electrical and thermal energies because it produces high amount of thermal energy that can be used in the regeneration process without the need to transfer fuel to the Antarctica.

Thermal Swing Adsorption will be used as a technology for capturing CO₂ from air instead of chemical absorption which was studied in previous literature. CO₂ wheel will be the core process in the capturing plant. Total capacity of plant is 300 M ton CO₂/year.

Pipeline will be utilized to transport CO₂ to the port which in turn will be transported by tankers to offshore floating platform in order to be injected into two vertical pipelines and disposed in the deep ocean.

Progress to Date:

Plant location was chosen to satisfy best process conditions such as extremely low water content in atmosphere. Moreover, Process flow diagram was developed for material and energy in the capturing plant. Energy requirements for the process were determined.

Expected completion date (by the end of 2010)

Return to Mike Lipsett’s Research Page