ION Engineering has signed a test agreement with Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM) in Norway to further scale-up and validate ION's CO2 capture technology.

Located at Statoil's Mongstad refinery in western Norway, TCM is claimed to be the world's largest and most advanced carbon capture test facility.

ION Engineering is working on a CO2 capture technology, which aims to make the gas capture more viable option to mitigate greenhouse gas while reducing overall costs.

ION will continue multi-year cooperative funding agreement with the US Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL).

The company, which is expected to receive $16m in funding from NETL, has successfully completed pilot scale testing of the technology at the National Carbon Capture Center (NCCC) in 2015.

In partnership with TCM and NETL, ION will now test the liquid absorbent system at TCM's existing 12MWe test facility, which makes use of industrial flue gases to simulate coal-fired conditions.

The test program, which is scheduled to commence in October 2016, will further assess the ION's solvent and process technology for commercial scale deployment including at natural gas and coal-fired power plants.

ION CEO Alfred Brown said: "Technology Center Mongstad is an ideal environment that allows us to validate our process at a large industrial test facility.

“The opportunity to test at TCM represents the final step in our ability to deploy our technology at commercial scale."

Upon successful testing at Technology Centre Mongstad, ION intends to undertake commercial demonstration of the technology starting in 2017.

TCM is a joint venture formed between the Norwegian state with 75.12% stake, Statoil 20%, Shell 2.44% and Sasol 2.44%.


Image: ION’s new technology intends to make CO2 capture more viable option for greenhouse gas mitigation. Photo: courtesy of worradmu/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net.