Release Date: October 12, 2010

NETL Researchers Earn Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer
Technology Development Boosts Science Related to Carbon Dioxide Capture

	Looking like microscopic pearls, less than 800 micrometers in diameter, NETL's award-winning basic immobilized amine sorbents increase the capture rate of carbon dioxide in large-scale processes. The sorbents can be used at fossil fuel power plants in carbon capture and sequestration, a key technology in reducing carbon emissions and mitigating climate change.

Pittsburgh, Pa. —For their efforts in developing a sorbent process that advances the capture of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from power plants and transferring the process to the marketplace, two researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) have received a 2010 Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) award for excellence.

The FLC Mid-Atlantic Region presented its annual Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer during an award ceremony on October 7 in Richmond, Va. Physical scientist McMahan Gray and chemical engineer Henry Pennline, from NETL’s Separations and Fuels Processing Division, received the award for their “Basic Immobilized Amine Sorbent Process for CO₂ Capture.”

Carbon capture and storage is a key element in national efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions and combat climate change. Capturing CO₂ in a relatively pure form is the most expensive element in a complete carbon capture, transport, and sequestration system, representing roughly three fourths of the total cost. One of the goals of the Energy Department’s Carbon Sequestration Program is to reduce the costs of CO₂ capture at fossil fuel power plants through revolutionary new capture and sequestration concepts.

Gray and Pennline’s sorbent process involves depositing amines onto a porous solid support and using them to capture CO₂ from flue gas.  The regenerable sorbent can then be heated to drive off the CO₂ and reused for many cycles.  Application of this technology  reduces the costs and energy associated with  more conventional scrubbing processes to capture CO₂ in large-scale power generation facilities.

To move the process from the laboratory into commercial use, Gray and Pennline assembled a consortium of interested collaborators, including federal and industrial parties that can not only use the process technology but also fabricate enough of the sorbent on a large-scale. They patented various aspects of the sorbent development, and they publicized the technique through a solicitation that has led to a cooperative research and development agreement with a company eager to commercialize the technology. 
 
The FLC Mid Atlantic Region annually presents its Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer to recognize outstanding work by laboratory employees in transferring a technology developed by a federal laboratory to the commercial marketplace. A distinguished panel of technology transfer experts from industry, state and local government, academia, and the federal laboratory system evaluates the nominations to select “the cream of the crop.”

The FLC is a nationwide network of federal laboratories that promotes the rapid transfer of laboratory research results and technologies into the marketplace. Its national and regional awards programs recognize laboratory employees who have done an outstanding work in technology transfer over the past year. NETL is one of more than 250 federal laboratories and centers, and their parent departments and agencies, that are members of the FLC.