María Erans Moreno

About the research project «Adsorbents for low-concentration CO2 capture (ALCO2)»

Research Line: Materials development for CO2 capture from air

Mentor:  Prof. Amaya Arencibia Villagrá

Abstract

The European Union has identified climate change as one of the societal challenges of our era, as it is expected to cause devastating effects worldwide. Therefore, a portfolio of green energy technologies needs to be deployed in order to mitigate the effects of climate change, which are associated with the increase in CO₂ emissions among other greenhouse gases. Currently, most of the research efforts are directed towards the decarbonisation of large emissions sources. However, this approach alone is not expected to be sufficient as these sources only contribute to approximately 50% of the CO₂ emissions. In addition, merely reducing the emissions of CO₂ may not be sufficient. Consequently, there is an increasing consensus among the scientific community, which suggests that negative carbon technologies will play a role in the future energy mix. These technologies are far from industrial maturity, and exhaustive research effort is necessary in order to achieve the desired Technology Readiness Level (TRL). This project will investigate the development of novel materials derived from waste for low-concentration CO₂ capture applications including direct air capture (DAC). An exhaustive testing programme will be conducted to compare the performance of a range of materials. Special attention will be given to the effect of temperature, humidity and CO₂ concentrations. In addition, a techno-economic analysis of DAC options will be performed with a focus on scalability for industrial applications. This project is expected to show the way forward for low-concentration CO₂ capture with a special focus on DAC technologies.

About María Erans

María Erans obtained her MEng degree in Industrial Engineering with a specialization in Energy Technologies at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (2014). During the last year of her MEng degree, she was awarded a European grant to undertake a double-degree program achieving an MSc in Carbon Capture and Storage at Cranfield University (2013-2014). After that, she obtained a PhD in Energy and Power at Cranfield University (2017), where she was awarded the Lord Kings Norton medal for best PhD thesis of the year. During her time as a PhD student, she investigated different materials for CO₂ capture using the calcium looping technology, while she collaborated in other CCS related projects. She also was in charge of planning and running experimental campaigns in pilot-scale fluidised-bed reactors to assess the performance of the produced materials under industrial conditions. She was awarded two travel grants during her PhD and travelled to Germany and Italy for two long research visits. After her PhD, she was hired as a post-doctoral fellow at Cranfield University where she participated in different projects related to direct air capture, fuel cells and biogas purification, while teaching post-graduate students and supervising MSc thesis. In 2018, she moved to the University of Nottingham where she collaborated and was the technical lead of different industrially funded chemical engineering projects, as well as teaching undergraduate students and supervising PhD students. She has published 16 peer-reviewed scientific publications, and her work has been presented in several conferences worldwide. She is a Chartered Engineer and an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2018. Currently, she is developing the ALCO₂ project as a GET-COFUND Marie Curie Fellow at URJC.