Honeywell bets on UT carbon-capture technology

Honeywell has licensed a solvent developed by University of Texas chemical engineers they say will make it more affordable to capture carbon dioxide from power plants and heavy industry before it reaches the atmosphere. The new solvent will enable companies to use smaller carbon-capture equipment, said Gary Rochelle, a chemical engineering professor at UT Austin who has worked more than 20 years to develop the chemical. That will make it cheaper for companies and facilities to employ carbon capture, and Rochelle said he hopes that will help lead to wider adoption of carbon-capture technology. “It’s robust and resistant to oxidation and degradation,” Rochelle said. “You can use it at higher temperatures and pressures, and it reduces energy consumption by 10 to 20 percent.”

Rochelle and other researchers tested the new solvent at the University of Austin’s small power plant, which produces about 200 kilowatts of power from coal, and at the National Carbon Capture Center in Alabama, which produces 500 kilowatts. Twice that amount, 1 megawatt, is about enough electricity to power about 200 homes on a hot summer day. But if it were deployed at an average-size power plant, which produces about 685 megawatts, the advanced solvent’s carbon-capture technology could siphon about 3.4 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, about the same emissions produced by 735,000 cars each year. It can also be used in a much wider array of industries, said Ben Owens, vice president and general manager at Honeywell Sustainable Technology Solutions. “We’ve gotten a lot of interest from the cement industry and other verticals, like oil, gas and petrochemical,” he said. “Everyone we’re talking to is really evaluating how they can reduce their carbon footprint, so there’s a lot of engagement on this space.”