Membrane technologies for climate protection

A major share of our energy needs will continue to be supplied by fossil fuels in the coming decades. It is therefore essential to develop technologies to separate greenhouse gases that are produced when fossil fuels are burned. The Helmholtz Association is intensifying research in this area with its new portfolio theme Gas Separation Processes for Carbon-Free Fossil Fuel Power Plants. Four Helmholtz Centres and four universities are collaborating to propel development of new membrane technologies for carbon capture. The project will receive €3.5 million in funding from the Helmholtz Association each year until 2014 with matching contributions from partner institutions. After this period, work in this area can continue within the framework of Helmholtz research programmes.

“If we want to reach our climate goals we need to separate greenhouse gases from fossil fuel power plants without significantly compromising their efficiency. The Helmholtz Alliance MEM-BRAIN has shown that membrane technologies have the potential to do that. With our new portfolio topic, we plan to continue developing more sophisticated methods for gas separation using novel polymer and ceramic membranes,” says the Helmholtz Association’s President, Prof. Jürgen Mlynek.

In particular, the research partners plan to focus on materials research and the further development of components for the production of high-performance membranes. In addition, they plan to work on scenarios to determine how separation membranes can be affordably and effectively integrated into power plants, with the aim of making high-performance membrane systems available for various separation technologies within ten to twelve years.

The portfolio process in the Helmholtz Association

Within the Joint Initiative for Research and Innovation, the German federal government increased annual funding for research organisations to enable them to address issues of direct relevance to the future of society, promote talented young scientists, and make research in Germany even more competitive and productive. The Helmholtz Association is using part of these additional funds to finance a number of portfolio themes that a panel of experts from all the Helmholtz Centres had identified as particularly promising during a comprehensive evaluation process. The Association’s university partners will benefit from the increased funding as well, and from the next funding period, work on the portfolio themes will be continued within regular research programmes.

Partners in the research project Gas Separation Membranes /Processes for Carbon-Free Fossil Fuel Power Plants

Forschungszentrum Jülich (spokesman Dr. Hans Peter Buchkremer)
Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht Centre for Materials and Coastal Research
Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
RWTH Aachen University
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
University of Twente
Universidad Politécnica de Valencia