Fossil fuel technologies and CO2 capture and conversion

This stream of research involves studying several aspects concerning the possibility of setting up power stations for the generation of electricity and hydrogen fueled by liquid fuels but where the CO2 produced, instead of being released via the flue, is separated and made available as a highly pure flow for long-term underground storage. This activity is being developed in two main directions: the first is devoted to the evaluation of the thermal balances of these power stations using sophisticated software developed by LEAP; the second activity, combining theoretical and experimental investigation, aims to provide reliable models for the calculation of the thermodynamic properties of mixtures of CO2 and other gases, resulting from the separation techniques used in the power plant. Knowledge of these properties is fundamental, not only for the design of plant fitted with CO2 capture systems but also for determining the size of the gas pipelines carrying the CO2 from where it is produced to the storage area and for studying the physics of CO2 injection and migration processes in the geological formations used for storage.