The Centre for Innovation in Carbon Capture and Storage (CICCS) at Heriot-Watt University has extensive state-of-the-art laboratory facilities covering the whole CCS chain, including equipment for capture, transport, storage, utilization and monitoring. The main equipment is listed below.
Carbon capture rigs for low and high-temperature systems
The CICCS labs are equipped with reactors/instrumentation to cover several aspects of CO2 capture at low and high temperature, including absorption and adsorption, as well solvent/sorbent regeneration and degradation.
Carbon dioxide transport
The purpose built system allows mass flow calibrations and to evaluate/calibrate measurement uncertainty of mass flow-meter at pressure up to 100 bar and temperature between 263 K and 373 K.
Autoclave Reactors
Rigs to study CO2 geological storage, as well as enhanced hydrocarbon recovery. Several rigs can operate at high temperature and high pressures that mimic the conditions under which CO2 is stored in geological formations to study co-injection of gas mixtures, long-term fate of CO2 and well integrity
Columns to monitor environmental impacts of CO2 release
Flow through column systems to study the potential impacts caused by CO2 seepage for both on-shore and off-shore systems. The columns can also be used for the development and testing of sensors.
CO2 sequestration modules for mineral carbonation
Specialized rigs for mineral carbonation experiments that can be used for flue gas or pure CO2 streams. There are also rigs for scaling up experiments. In-situ and/or high-pressure ex-situ carbonation experiments are run up to 100bar and 250˚C.
CO2 utilisation-specialized reactors for solar fuel production
Photoreactors for solar fuel production, including liquid-phase (slurry and low pressure) and gas-phase (optical fiber, monolith, internally illuminated monolith, filter and plate) that use light energy to convert CO2 into fuels and chemicals. There are several light systems and external radiometers for adjustment of light intensity.
Supporting analytical equipment
CICCS is well equipped with state-of-the-art analytical instrumentation and other supporting laboratory equipment, including mass spectrometers, FT-IR spectrometer, thermogravimetric analyser, physisorption/chemisorption units, multi-parametric probes (pH, conductivity etc.), pulverisers, muffle/tube furnaces and ovens.