John Crane, UK universities win £1m funding for carbon capture project

Chicago, Illinois – John Crane, in partnership with Cranfield University and University of Edinburgh, has been awarded a funding of nearly £1 million (€1.1 million) to advance the UK’s net zero ambitions.

The £925,000 funding was awarded through the carbon capture, usage & storage (CCUS) innovation 2.0 competition – part of the department for energy security and net zero’s (DESNZ) £1 billion net zero innovation portfolio.

The grant was awarded for John Crane’s high-temperature sealing solution for supercritical?CO2?power cycle - a system that operates similar to other turbine cycles, but use CO2 as the working fluid.

The US manufacturer aims to develop an uncooled high-temperature dry gas seal solution for supercritical?CO2?power cycles, said a recent statement by John Crane.

The process, it said, will be using new simulations, material compositions and testing validations.

The seal, expected to work at high temperatures and pressure values, should significantly reduce leakages, said John Crane, a subsidiary of FTSE 100 Smiths Group.

Furthermore, the sealing system could potentially enable “the inclusion of an additional turbine expansion stage”.

According to John Crane, supercritical?CO2?power cycles are currently under consideration across the energy sector, including for CCUS.

Compared with conventional steam-driven systems, they deliver higher cycle efficiencies and reduced emissions from compact turbomachinery, and thereby lower fuel and water consumption.

“Through a supercritical?CO2?cycle efficiency improvement, overall emissions will be significantly reduced,” explained the company.

This, it said, cuts the cost of?CCUS?and accelerates the adoption of supercritical?CO2?power cycles into existing and future power plants.