e-CAPTURE · Electrified CO2 Capture using HiGee Vortex Reactors

The fossil fuel-driven chemical industry is notorious for its massive CO2 emissions and energy consumption, demanding an urgent shift toward cleaner, more efficient technologies, with CO2 capture as a critical component. Existing gas-liquid reactive absorption/solvent regeneration technologies, relying on bulky packed columns or motor-driven rotating packed beds, fall short due to transport limitations and scale-up challenges. e-CAPTURE seeks to revolutionize the field with a scalable and electrified reactor that uses flow kinetic energy to generate powerful centrifugal forces without mechanical rotation, overcoming transport limitations in interphase mass transfer, mixing, and heat transfer, pushing reaction rates to theoretical limits while slashing energy demands. My objective is to build and demonstrate the e-CAPTURE reactor, aiming for at least a tenfold increase in transport-reaction efficiency and a 50% reduction in energy demand over existing systems. To achieve this, I will:1) unlock a deep understanding of transport-reaction fundamentals under extreme centrifugal forces and shear rates, observed with cutting-edge temporal (0.1 µs) and spatial (0.1 µm/pixel) resolutions, via innovative techniques like ultra-high speed imaging and infrared planar laser-induced fluorescence.2) develop a computational fluid dynamics-driven multiscale modeling platform to unravel CO2 interphase mass transfer, turbulence-chemistry interaction, and heat dynamics.3) address design-performance relation of the e-CAPTURE reactor by multi-objective optimization and conduct reactive demonstration for impurities removal, CO2 absorption, and solvent regeneration with integrated Joule heating.Through a synergy of advanced visualization, state-of-the-art simulation, and real-world testing, I will deliver a transformative reactor technology—not only making CO2 capture scalable and economically viable but also serving as a general gas-liquid reactor for sustainable chemical engineering.