CO2 Transport - Corrosion and Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dense Phase CO2 with Impurities

The National Energy Technology Laboratory's (NETL's) record of success has been built on understanding the future of energy and the technologies required to make that future possible. We’ve long touted our success in developing the technologies that took on acid rain in the 1970s and mercury in the early 2000s. More recently, NETL has a leading role in President Biden’s ambitious climate goals, including a carbon emission-free power sector by 2035 and a net-zero economy by 2050.

Program Goals

The NETL Postgraduate Research Program (PGRP) is a high-intensity program designed to identify recent Master’s and Doctoral graduates of high promise and to foster advanced skill development. It allows the postgraduate to systematically outline career goals and helps provide the means of achieving these goals. NETL principal investigators and leads serve as mentors to PGRP participants during the program. This interaction affords the postgraduate a unique opportunity to develop critical skills needed to become an independent professional.

The program goals include providing the opportunity to participants to:

• Develop skills and knowledge in their field of study
• Engage with new areas of basic and applied research
• Network with world-class scientists
• Exchange ideas and skills with the Laboratory community
• Use state-of-the-art equipment
• Contribute to answers for today's pressing scientific questions
• Collaborate with the broader scientific and technical communities

Project Details

Through the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), this posting seeks a post-Doctoral or post-Master's researcher to engage in projects with the Research Innovation Center (RIC) at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in the area of Carbon Transport and Storage under the mentorship of Omer Dogan. This project will be hosted at the NETL Albany, OR campus.

Pipeline transportation systems are the most cost-effective method to transport liquid or supercritical CO2 (sCO2) from points of capture to sites where it will be permanently stored or used for industrial purposes. Many factors complicate designing an efficient CO2 pipeline and selecting materials. These factors include gas chemistry and impurities such as O2, CO, SOx, H2, NOx and H2O. If free water is present in dense or supercritical CO2, the corrosion rates of steel pipelines could be on the order of mm per year and localized corrosion could be expected depending on pressure, temperature, and flow rate. The concentration of dissolved water in the dense-phase CO2 or supercritical CO2 depends on the presence of impurities, such as, SOx, CH4, N2, and amines. Therefore, the presence of impurities in dense phase/supercritical CO2 can promote steel corrosion. Additionally, the stress corrosion cracking (SCC) behavior of carbon steels in dense phase CO2 containing impurities is not understood well. Available research results indicate that in general, the susceptibility of steel to SCC is increased with higher CO2 content of aqueous environment and lower pH levels. It has been suggested that hydrogen effects on SCC should be considered in CO2 environments with acidic pH. NETL has a substantial prior experience and capabilities to evaluate the susceptibility of pipeline steel to SCC in dense/supercritical CO2.  NETL has high-pressure and high-temperature electrochemical autoclaves to expose the SCC four-point bend specimens as well as load frames with autoclaves to simulate stress corrosion cracking in CO2 transport conditions.

The selected participant will learn:

• CO2 pipeline transport systems
• Conditions causing corrosion and stress corrosion cracking
• Corrosion mechanisms in CO2 pipelines
• Stress corrosion cracking mechanisms in CO2 pipelines
• Experimental methods of studying corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in CO2 pipelines
• Characterization techniques used in investigations of corrosion and stress corrosion cracking

The selected participant will have opportunities to interact with industrial partners and other national lab collaborators

Stipend: The selected participant will receive a monthly stipend commensurate with educational level and experience.

• Post-Master's stipends start at $3,891 per month.
• Post-Doctoral stipends start at $5,759 per month.
  Actual stipend rate offered may be increased based on experience.

Deliverables: To document the effectiveness of the program, participants are required to submit a pre-appointment and post-appointment survey, as well as a reflection on their appointment experience when they renew or end their appointment. The reflection should summarize their project(s), additional activities, and overall experience. Details are provided as the appointment end date approaches.
Participants may also have the opportunity to contribute to manuscripts, journal articles, book chapters, conference presentations, posters, patents, and other publications as a part of their appointment. Such achievements should also be reported to ORISE; additional details are provided after an offer has been accepted.

The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), part of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory system, is owned and operated by the DOE. NETL supports the DOE mission to advance the energy security of the United States. This is an educational opportunity offered by NETL and administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. Participants in the program are not considered employees of NETL, DOE, the program administrator, or any other office or agency.

Qualifications

To be eligible, you must either:

• have received a Doctoral degree within the last five years or be currently enrolled in a Doctoral degree program and complete the degree prior to the appointment start date.
• have received a Master's degree within the last three years or are currently enrolled in a Master's degree program and complete the degree prior to the appointment start date.

The ideal candidate would have some, but not necessarily all, of the following:

• Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, Material Science, or related field
• Technical expertise in analytical and experimental electrochemistry
• Knowledge of surface characterization instrumentation, including XRD and SEM-EDS
• Experience in experimentation using high-temperature, high-pressure autoclaves
• Proven track record of publications and presentations
• Experience in corrosion modeling.