Being part of ACT’s 3D-CAPS consortium, 3D-cat has received a subsidy in 2017.
ACT is a European initiative to establish CO2 capture and storage (CCS) as a tool to combat global warming. ACT means Accelerating CCS Technologies, and the ambition of the ten partners is to fund research and innovation projects that can lead to safe and cost effective technology.
Step-changes are required to accelerate the introduction of CCS technologies, one of the overall goals of the ERA-NET ACT program. The project 3D-CAPS targets a productivity increase of an order of magnitude in two sorbent-based technologies for CCS. This will lead to a substantial decrease in overall equipment size and costs. This will be achieved using the latest available techniques for materials production: additive manufacturing, commonly known as 3D-printing. One bottle neck for traditional packed-bed solutions for sorbent-based CCS technologies is the trade-off between flow-rate through the reactor, pressure drop and kinetics of the adsorption process. The use of 3D-printing will allow bespoke material configuration solutions for sorbent-based CCS technologies not available with current production technologies that allow the maximum interplay between these three competing and complementary elements.