September 05, 2022
16:15
Louvain-la-Neuve
Place Sainte Barbe, auditorium BARB91
For the degree of Doctor of Engineering Sciences and Technology
Burning fossil fuels for energy production has caused a significant increase in CO2 emissions. Excessive emission over the past decades is leading to catastrophic problems for the environment related to global warming. One of the prevailing solutions for the reduction of CO2 emissions from the power plants is CO2 capture and storage/utilization technologies.
In this thesis, CO2 is considered a source of carbon, a valuable compound that is worth recovering as a high-purity bicarbonate salt (NaHCO3), which can be used in the industry to try to close the carbon cycle. The proposed process includes two main steps, membrane-based absorption, and membrane distillation crystallization. In the first step, membrane-based absorption is used as an alternative to the conventional CO2 capture process. A green solvent, i.e. amino acids, is used to convert CO2 into NaHCO3 using a membrane contactor as a non-selective barrier that provides
the contacting surface for the gas and liquid phases.In the next step, NaHCO3 is crystallized using a osmotic membrane distillation crystallization (OMDC) process. In the OMDC, the driving force is a difference in the water activity of the osmotic and feed solutions, which results in the evaporation of water from the feed into the osmotic solution.
Jury members :
- Prof. P. Luis Alconero (UCLouvain, Belgium), supervisor
- Prof. R. Ronsse (UCLouvain, Belgium), chairperson
- Prof. Tom Lessens (UCLouvain, Belgium)
- Prof. Eric Favre (Lorraine University, France)
- Prof. Francesco Macedonio (ITM, CNR, Italy)
- Dr. Karine Cavalier (Solvay Co., Belgium)