John Crane, a subsidiary of London-based industrial technology major Smiths Group plc (LON: SMIN), together with partners Cranfield University and The University of Edinburgh, has received a £924,895 (approx.. US$1,175 million) grant from the UK Government for a carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) project.
The grant was awarded through the CCUS Innovation 2.0 competition, as part of the £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which was announced in late 2020, according to a statement by Smiths Group.
The funds will be used for John Crane’s innovative, high-temperature sealing solution for supercritical carbon dioxide (CO₂) power cycle, which is a novel process currently under consideration across the energy sector, including for CCUS.
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The solution, which delivers higher cycle efficiencies as compared with conventional steam-driven systems, helps cut emissions from compact turbomachinery and leads to reduced fuel and water consumption and lower capital expenditures, Smiths Group explained.
The aim is to develop an innovative, uncooled high-temperature dry gas seal solution for supercritical CO₂ power cycles by using new simulations, material compositions and testing validations, it added.
“The transition away from fossil fuels presents a huge opportunity for our growing green energy sector and we will continue to make sure UK business can benefits from its full potential,” Lord Callanan, Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance, was quoted as saying in a comment to the grant award.
John Crane’s solution is expected to significantly reduce leakages and potentially even enable the inclusion of an additional turbine expansion stage.
Such an improvement in supercritical CO₂ cycle efficiency would lead to a significant reduction in overall emissions, which would in turn cut the cost of CCUS and accelerate the adoption of supercritical CO₂ power cycles into existing and future power plants, Smiths Group concluded.
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