November 2, 2016
2nd November 2016. LNG Futures Researchers have been awarded $584,000 in Australian Research Council (ARC) funding. This includes the Discovery Project “CO2-CH4 exchange in porous media for carbon neutral energy production” and the LIEF grant for an acoustic levitation facility.
Carbon Neutral Energy Production
Training Centre Chief Investigator Professor Mike Johns, Director Professor Eric May and Dr. Paul Stanwix have been awarded a $391,000 ARC Discovery project for “CO2-CH4 exchange in porous media for carbon neutral energy production”.
Ultimately the project aims to simultaneously sequester carbon dioxide while providing enhanced natural gas recovery from reservoirs. The exchange between carbon dioxide and methane in reservoirs is poorly understood and this project aims to better define the process and mechanisms. To achieve this Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of high-pressure flooding and exchange experiments will be combined with numerical modelling to provide a comprehensive approach. The process would be near carbon-neutral means of energy production and has the potential to be of significant impact to the oil and gas industry.
The ARC Discovery Projects scheme supports fundamental research by individual researchers or research teams. The scheme is an integral part of the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Programme which supports high quality research essential to Australia’s innovation system for the development of new ideas, job creation, economic growth, and an enhanced quality of life in Australia.
Acoustic Levitation Facility
Training Centre Director Professor Eric May and Chief Investigator Professor Mike Johns in collaboration with our partners at Curtin University, University of Adelaide and University of Queensland have been successful in obtaining ARC LIEF funding for an acoustic levitation facility for advanced research into multi-component, multi-phase mixtures.
The project aims to create a specialised acoustic levitation facility that delivers precise control of a suspended particle, droplet or bubble within a high pressure continuous phase, and simultaneous measurement of multiple bulk and interfacial properties. Acoustic levitation enables container-less experiments, offering opportunities for applied engineering and fundamental science.
The acoustic levitation system will be integrated with the specialised Raman imaging microscope currently located in the UWA Gas Processing Laboratories at ARRC. The system will allow study of crystallisation, mass transfer and molecular exchange, in application areas including energy transport, carbon capture and storage, and protein nucleation.
The ARC Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) scheme provides funding for large-scale cooperative initiatives so that expensive infrastructure, equipment and facilities can be shared between higher education organisations and also with industry. The scheme also fosters collaboration through its support of the cooperative use of international or national research facilities.