Schlumberger has entered into an agreement with RTI International, a nonprofit research institute, to accelerate the industrialization and scale-up of its proprietary non-aqueous solvent (NAS) technology, which enhances the efficiency of absorption-based carbon capture. The NAS technology will be applicable to capture CO₂ across a broad variety of industrial emissions.

The NAS technology offers an alternative to conventional aqueous solvent technologies for carbon capture, as it consumes less energy while retaining high CO₂ capacity, resulting in a material reduction in operating costs. The NAS technology is also less corrosive—eliminating the need for high-grade corrosion-resistant alloys and the associated increase in capital costs. This enhances the overall economics of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) projects.

RTI has developed the innovative NAS technology over the past 12 years, progressing from lab scale to large engineering scale. NAS technology uses as much as 40% less energy during the CO₂ capture process. High capture efficiency at lower energy cost is critical for widespread commercial use of carbon capture solvents.

—Dr. Marty Lail, senior director of RTI’s Decarbonization Sciences program

As part of an engineering-scale carbon capture demonstration funded by the US Department of Energy, NAS technology was able to remove >99% of the CO₂ from natural gas combustion exhaust streams—the highest capture efficiency reported for any carbon capture solvent technology for this application.

RTI and Schlumberger will collaborate to develop models that enable fast design and process customization to achieve a step-change in CO₂ capture operations while leveraging Schlumberger’s global footprint to expand market opportunities for the technology.