Practice Area

CO₂ Capture & Sequestration

Many of Trimeric’s projects involve the capture, processing, and utilization or underground injection of CO₂. Trimeric has provided third-party techno-economic analysis and process engineering services for dozens of carbon capture and storage projects in support of the U.S. Department of Energy’s research program, as well as designed numerous CO₂ purification and compression facilities for commercial Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) clients. Many of Trimeric’s staff members measure their experience with process engineering work involving CO₂ in decades, contributing to Trimeric’s expertise in the use of process simulation tools to design systems for processing supercritical CO₂. Awareness of cutting edge technology in a developing field, and real-world experience with what it takes to make commercial EOR projects successful, make Trimeric a valuable resource for a wide variety of CO₂ related projects.

Capabilities

A partial list of Trimeric’s CO₂ processing experience is as follows:

  • Engineering design for large-scale capture, purification, compression, and dehydration projects for enhanced oil recovery and sequestration
  • Process simulation and design of CO₂ unit operations
    • Absorption of CO₂ from natural gas, flue gas, or other process gas streams
    • Dehydration of CO₂ at moderate pressures with triethylene glycol (TEG)
    • Dehydration of supercritical CO₂ with glycerol
    • H₂S removal from CO₂
    • CO₂ liquefaction via compact and conventional heat exchangers
    • Pipeline flow analysis (e.g., two-phase supercritical flow in hilly terrain)
    • CO₂ injection wells, production wells, and flowlines
    • Retrograde condensation of water in CO₂ pipelines
  • Preparation of equipment specifications
  • Flammability assessments for CO₂/methane mixtures for process hazard analyses
  • Plant start-up and troubleshooting services
  • Debottlenecking studies and project management for plant expansions
  • Materials selection
  • Conceptual design of novel CO₂ processing/capture/sequestration approaches
  • CO₂ capture pilot plant design
  • Definition and technical/economic evaluation of alternative process configurations
  • Delivery of training presentations on CO₂ processing to engineers and operators at industry conferences and on-site at client facilities

Project Examples

Supercritical CO₂ Dehydration

Trimeric performed the process design, startup, and project management for four separate grass-roots supercritical CO₂ dehydration facilities to process a combined 850 MMscfd.

CO₂ Cooling and Pumping

Trimeric performed the process design, equipment sourcing, startup, and project management for a new plant to dehydrate CO₂, condense, and pump 150 MMscfd of CO₂.

CO₂ Liquefaction and Distillation

Trimeric performed a plant capacity evaluation for an EOR facility that used liquefaction and distillation to remove oxygen and other impurities before pumping to pipeline pressure. Trimeric advised on process modifications and additional equipment installation through commissioning and startup to improve reliability and operability and to increase plant capacity by 20%.

CO₂ Compression, Dehydration, and Pumping

Trimeric led a grass-roots project from conceptual design through commissioning and startup for a 50 MMscfd EOR facility including multistage centrifugal blowers, reciprocating compressors, glycol dehydration, and multistage centrifugal pumps.

Equipment Selection for CO₂ Liquefaction Unit

Trimeric evaluated several different conventional and compact heat exchanger designs and prepared equipment specifications for an 18 MMscfd CO₂ condenser.

Glycerol Purification

Evaluation of methods to remove unwanted chloride salts from glycerol, including laboratory testing of ion-exchange resins and specification of design parameters for an ion exchange system.

CO₂ Heating and Pumping Skids

Trimeric performed the design and provided process engineering oversight during fabrication for two separate sets of CO₂ heating and pumping skids designed to pump up to 1.6 MMscfd of CO₂ at internationally-located CO₂ sequestration test sites.