Effect of impurities on CO2 transportation pipelines ENCO2RE
Status: Project
Date Announced: September, 2025
Summary
Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technology is considered as a promising emission reduction option for the mitigation of climate change1. The efficient transportation of CO2 from emission sources to storage sites or utilisation facilities is very crucial to achieve full-scale carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS)2.
CO2 which is captured from emission sources is often contaminated with impurities which can significantly affect its thermophysical properties and flow behaviour during pipeline transportation.
A Joint Industry Project (JIP) which will focus on research about the effect of impurities in CO2 transportation in pipelines has been developed to address the following points:
- How to detect acid drop out
- How the drop out of liquid acids and water contamination is going to affect the corrosion behaviour of the pipelines and risk their integrity. Investigation of the pH on corrosion rate in case of acid formation will be performed.
- How can acid drop out be limited (investigation in limiting the concentration of certain impurities).
The overall goal of this JIP will be to detect the acid drop out and measure the corrosion rate in a given CO2 stream composition, temperature and pressure. This would aid the development of a domain diagram for safe operation of CO2 pipelines. The detection of acid drop out will help assess transient effects including the effect of changing composition of CO2 when mixing incoming flows from different emitters. To assist the aforementioned prediction, a dedicated tool will be developed to support the decision-making of accepting or rejecting a CO2 stream into a pipeline network.
Benefits
- A reliable acid drop-out detection system through sensor development.
- Technical and financial feasibility study on sensor system for field deployment.
- Precise control of addition of impurities including water.
- Precise control of temperature and pressure change.
- Systematic investigation of corrosion of carbon steel in different CO2 streams
- Understand transient conditions for better operability of pipelines.
- Development of a tool based on experimental results to envisage corrosion
If you are interested in finding out more, download the PDF Summary Outline using the following link.