UK carbon capture business Carbon Clean’s modular CycloneCC technology has been selected for an offshore carbon capture pilot project involving Japanese firm MODEC and South Korean project management and construction company Samsung E&A.
The study envisages the installation of a carbon capture module on a MODEC Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel as a pilot, and it will be a first deployment of CycloneCC in an onboard carbon capture setting.
Source: Carbon Clean
Carbon Clean will provide front-end engineering and design (FEED) support to Samsung E&A, including equipment supply of the rotating packed bed (RPB) technology at the heart of CycloneCC and process design package (PDP) licensing for the unit.
Samsung E&A will perform detailed engineering to optimise CycloneCC for the offshore environment and FPSO’s boundary conditions.
CycloneCC is well suited to an offshore maritime environment, as the unit footprint is up to 50% smaller than conventional solutions.
The recently launched CycloneCC C1 series delivers a height reduction of 70% compared with column-based technologies. The RPBs will achieve enhanced capture performance under vessel motions compared to columns, making CycloneCC suitable for offshore operations.
Koichi Matsumiya, Chief Technical Officer, MODEC, said it is proactively pursuing two targets through its research and development activities. One is to provide a stable energy supply to society with minimum greenhouses gases, and the other is to prepare for new floating solutions for alternative energies to oil and gas.
“We believe that the carbon capture technology proposed by Carbon Clean will be the key to achieving both of our targets,” he said.
Cheon Hong Park, Executive Vice-President and Head of Sustainable Solutions Division, Samsung E&A, said the initiative aligned with its mission to address societal challenges through technological solutions and he was confident that the successful execution of this project will play a key role in advancing MODEC’s mid-term decarbonisation plan while accelerating the commercialisation of Carbon Clean’s CycloneCC technology.
Aniruddha Sharma, Chair and CEO, Carbon Clean, said onboard carbon capture is essential for decarbonising offshore oil and gas operations.
“Our highly modular CycloneCC technology is 10-times smaller than conventional solutions, making it ideal for confined spaces, including floating vessels and maritime settings. Its replicable, scalable design makes it logistically and commercially viable to be deployed across a fleet at a fraction of the cost of traditional amine systems,” he said.
The next stage may include the installation of a commercial, scaled-up CycloneCC unit on MODEC’s FPSO fleet.
