Rautaruukki Oyj, successfully secured a patent for a technique that produces calcium carbonate (CaCO3
) from alkaline
by-products. The method was first developed during the Tekes (the Finnish Funding Agency
for (2007-2009).
Innovation) funded project Slag2PCC_ Plus
Järvinen’s group
postdoctoral researcher Sanni Eloneva was one of the method inventors. This approach to CSS aims to reduce
carbon dioxide emissions by using alkaline industrial waste materials and by-products and flue-gases rich in CO2
to create CaCO3
products that are marketable to the paper industry. By using waste by-products such as the slags generated in iron and steel making processes
and flue gases,
costs are kept to a minimum while significantly reducing the
associated industrial
carbon emissions. Usually, the production of CaCO3 requires limestone to be mined,
transported and
then submitted to hugely energy intensive calcination processes that emit CO2
but
by substituting limestone as the raw source material with industrial
by-products, this method
extinguishes
alkaline waste patent the
Technology and
litres, the reactor will need to be significantly larger again to serve commercial purposes. Before the team can begin to think
about the stages ahead it is imperative that the processes involved are first understood at every level in the pilot plant. “We need to test all the conditions,” states Järvinen’s group doctoral candidate Arshe Said. “This way we’ll find out the actual energy consumption, the chemical consumption, the steel slag residue’s quality as well as the quality of the end product (PCC), and the amount of CO2
we can fix.” In order to sell CaCO3 as
“In order to sell CaCO3
material in the paper making
as a filler
a filler material in the paper making process, it is also essential that the end product is up to scratch. This means that it has to be very pure and very white in addition to other requirements. Part of the problem of
process, it is also essential that the end product is up to scratch”
need for such wasteful activities. Current development work is funded by
the Cluster for Energy and Environment (CLEEN Oy) Carbon Capture and Storage (CCSP) research programme (2011-2015), the Academy of Finland and Aalto Centre for
Entrepreneurship. Recently,
Järvinen’s team have been busy scaling up their CSS technique in a pilot CO2 fixation plant. “In 2004 we started with a really small reactor, even smaller than half a litre, and now we’re working at a scale 400 times bigger,” explains Järvinen. Currently handling around 200
up-scaling the project, as Said explains, is a lack of appropriate tools: “all the equipment you can find is either for laboratory level or industrial level and you cannot get something in
between”. A shift from glass equipment to
metal has forced the team, usually at home with more
hardcore research
challenges, to come up with practical solutions to this change
in materials
where very potent chemicals are employed. “Last week we produced our first batch of CaCO3
with the new pilot
plant and it is working really nicely,” states Järvinen. Once the process has been optimised at
every level, Järvinen, Eloneva and Said can begin to translate the method to a larger scale but
it may be another five
years before they can even begin to think about it at a commercial scale. Judging by the group’s findings so far, the potential of this novel carbon fixation technique could have a substantial impact on the future direction of CO2
mineralisation as a
feasible method for reducing carbon emissions.
“If it works,”
Eloneva asserts, “it could pave a way for CO2
mineralisation, a
concept which currently faces many challenges”.
★
www.projectsmagazine.eu.com 79
Contact: Tel: +358 050 4142593 Email:
mika.jarvinen@aalto.fi Web:
http://energytech.aalto.fi/en/
Mika Järvinen Associate Professor . M.S. (Tech.) Lappeenranta University of Technology 1997.
D.Sc. (Tech.) Aalto University. Academy Research Fellow 2012-17. Professor (fixed term) at Aalto, 2012-13. Associate Professor at Aalto,1 December 2013 -31 November 2018.
MAIN CONTACT
AT A GLANCE Project Information
Project Title: Slag2PCC concept towards commercial application
Project Objective: The Slag2PCC process route aims at converting calcium containing industrial by-products into valuable precipitated calcium carbonate product. The object of the current development work is to move the concept further towards commercial application. This includes building of the pilot-scale test facility for testing the relevant parameters in larger scale.
Project Duration and Timing: Research started in 2004 and continues until the concept is ready
Project Funding: The earlier relevant research (2005- 2011) has been funded by two Tekes (the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation) funded projects and Academy of Finland. Current development work is funded by CLEEN Oy’s (Cluster for Energy and Environment) Carbon Capture and Storage (CCSP) research program (2011-2015), Academy of Finland and Aalto Center for Entrepreneurship.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112