Munmorah

The Munmorah Post Combustion Capture Plant is a pilot-demonstration project that commenced in March 2008 and ran for around one year.

The goal  was  to provide proof of  concept, evaluation of various absorbents, assist in the scale up to demonstration and commercial size plants and provide the science underpinnings for future policy options for CO2 capture.

The pilot was focused on assessing the performance of an aqueous ammonia based PCC pilot plant. The project team tested various wash water flow rates, ammonia flow rates, ammonia concentrations, temperatures and pressures looking for optimum conditions.

The results were extremely encouraging and have been used as input to the design of a larger demonstration project.

The pilot plant has now  been relocated to Vales Point Power Station where further testing is contemplated. Lessons  learnt  from  those further trials  will provide support for a large scale $150 million post combustion capture and storage demonstration project in Australia, which should be operational by 2013, capturing more than 50,000 tonnes of CO2 each year.