SpaciMS Investigations of CO2 Capture Devices

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) will perform temporally and spatially resolved measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations inside operating solid sorbent CO2 capture devices with spatially resolved capillary inlet mass spectrometry (SpaciMS) to elucidate sorption and desorption processes and generate datasets for model calibration and validation. Solid sorbent materials for both direct air capture (DAC) and point-source CO2 capture applications are currently being developed, evaluated, and scaled up for demonstration and deployment. In certain applications, solid CO2 sorbents are coated onto ceramic flow-through monoliths or in fiber beds. SpaciMS provides a powerful tool to measure CO2 concentration profiles inside such devices under actual operating conditions. These measurements will yield valuable insights into the CO2 capture and release processes as a function of operating conditions, such as temperature, pressure, flow rate and gas composition. Furthermore, they will provide critical datasets for use in calibration and validation of capture device models, which will be needed to design scaled-up systems. Finally, SpaciMS will reveal how common pollutants found in ambient air (for DAC) or flue gas (for point-source capture) might impact device performance as they block CO2 storage sites or key reaction pathways.