Rajab Khalilpour wins the Pacific Honeywell Users Group (HUG) Competition
30 August 2011
Rajab's research on post-combustion carbon capture (PCC) was recognised at the Pacific Honeywell Users Group (HUG) held at Perth this week. Rajab won first prize for his rigorous modelling and simulation work of a power plant integrated with carbon capture. Rajab works with Dr Ali Abbas in the Laboratory for Multiscale Systems at the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. The work was presented at HUG 2011.
Rajab's work focuses on solvent-based PCC, a process which has become important because of its potential to reduce power plants' carbon emissions and carbon related tax liabilities. The PCC process is coupled downstream of a fossil-fuel fired power plant and works to capture the CO2 released from the combustion processes.
It uses solvents in an absorption-desorption cycle to separate the CO2 from the flue stream prior to compression and geosequestration. The objective is to capture about 90% of emitted CO2. The drawback of PCC is the significant energy penalty it introduces to the power plant which reduces the plant's power load. Through modelling and simulation, Rajab analysed the opportunities for energy savings, identifying reductions of 18 per cent in the introduced PCC energy penalty.