LKCA And BASF To Market CO2-Capture Licences

Linde-KCA-Dresden (LKCA), a Linde Group subsidiary, and BASF have signed a cooperation agreement to jointly market licences and plants for the capture of CO2 from flue gases. Within this cooperation, BASF will be responsible for the chemical processes for capturing CO2, while LKCA will provide engineering and design as well as the construction of the facilities.

The cooperation will focus mainly on the Middle East region, where the demand for purified CO2 is increasing, for example to raise yields in crude-oil production (by means of enhanced oil recovery) and in urea production. 'In a situation where energy production around the world relies predominantly on fossil materials and where this share is expected to increase further, we will concentrate precisely on these energy sources in our cooperation,' said Dr Andreas Northemann, head of the gas treatment business in BASF's Intermediates division.

'Through this cooperation, we will contribute to capturing and transporting climate-damaging CO2 in a controlled manner for recycling in purified form or final sequestration,' added Jorg Linsenmaier, managing director of LKCA. LKCA has experience in the field of planning and building plants that separate and then compress CO2 from flue gases. BASF has experience in capturing CO2 from gas flows.

The latter company markets its amine-based gas treatment technology under the brand name Amdea. This BASF process has been used around the world in more than 220 gas scrubbing facilities, as they are known, mainly in natural-gas and syngas facilities.

Synrad CO2 Laser Welds Polyethylene Film

Synrad's sealed CO2 lasers are used in a variety of industrial processes including cutting, welding, drilling and marking. Because CO2 lasers have very consistent output power and the heating process is always non-contact, laser-formed seals will remain consistent over hours of operation. For this particular application, which required sealing 0.05mm-thick polyethylene film, a Synrad 50W laser was used in conjunction with an XY table and a cutting head outfitted with a 63.5mm focal length lens.

This lens typically provides a 0.1mm focused spot size; however, for laser sealing operations, a larger spot size is often preferred. A larger spot size yields lower overall power density and leads to increased melting and less vaporisation of thin films. It also increases the weld line width, providing better weld strength.

For these reasons, the lens was unfocused slightly by increasing the standoff distance to around 5mm between the surface of the film and the tip of the cutting head, to obtain a 0.5mm-wide weld line on the plastic film. The cutting head traversed two layers of the film at a speed of 12.7m/min to produce the final finished seal. The resulting seal is consistent in strength across its entire length.