George Winning
“The Critical Role of Impurity Analysis in Ensuring the Integrity of CCUS Projects”.
Food and drinks provided
The successful execution of Carbon Capture, Use and Storage (CCUS) projects hinges on the management of several technical criteria, with the integrity of equipment, materials, and critical components being paramount. Recent data indicates that 33% of all unintentional CO2 releases in existing assets were attributed to equipment or material/weld issues, primarily stemming from corrosion processes influenced by poorly understood effect of impurities in the CO2 streams.
The corrosive properties of CO2, in both gaseous and dense phases, are highly sensitive to impurities commonly found in the streams, which can adversely affect integrity and operability. The impurities in the stream, after processing, although at low levels can react to form new compounds, such as acids and secondary aqueous phases, which can impact the integrity of pipelines. These effects must be considered when setting impurity levels for a project. Even seemingly non-reactive species, like glycols and alcohols, can alter thermodynamics and phase envelopes, affecting the solubility of other impurities during phase changes.
Reaction chemistry in CCUS projects is an evolving field with limited experimental data. Testing the effects of impurities is in its early stages, with new methodologies and approaches being developed but much more is required to fully understand the effects of the impurities.
This presentation discusses the analysis of impurities and their impact on the selection, qualification, and assurance of materials to ensure the proposed asset life is achieved. Various detrimental mechanisms, including corrosion in relation to the impurity levels are discussed. Current CO2 corrosion prediction models in aqueous environments are limited in their ability to predict corrosion in pure CO2 streams, and the effect that impurities have. Recent advances in models consider the effect of the impurities, and use thermodynamic models to predict the formation of a secondary water phase, examples of this are discussed in the presentation.