Transformational changes are needed to sustain energy and water systems in the 21<sup>st</sup> century.  From decarbonizing the energy sector to building a circular water economy, these systemic transitions will require large scale system redesign.  At the same time, system redesign is often hindered by technological shortcomings and an absence of fundamental insight into critical processes and materials.  This presentation will discuss the process of identifying high impact fundamental research that advances transformational change in energy water systems, and demonstrate this process for the challenge of managing high salinity brines from geological carbon sequestration.  By combining systems analysis and technoeconomic analysis, we find that the majority of saline brines produced during the carbon sequestration process will exceed 100,000 ppm total dissolved solids. Treating this water using state-of-the-art thermal methods, including mechanical vapor recompression and crystallization, would impose a significant (4-8%) energy penalty on the coal fired power plant, negating some of the benefits of carbon storage.  Identifying the need for energy efficient high salinity brine treatment, we developed a novel, membrane-based approach for concentrating high salinity brines entitled Osmotically Assisted Reverse Osmosis (OARO).  Finally, we perform a cost optimization of OARO configurations, demonstrating that while the cost optimal and energy optimal configurations are not equivalent for this system, the cost-optimal configuration for OARO dominates MVC on both cost and energy consumption metrics.

Managing high salinity brines from geological carbon sequestration

2019 Fall National Meeting

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