Katherine Hornbostel

University of Pittsburgh | Pitt · Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science

Flat sheet membranes offer many advantages over other membrane configurations, (e.g. ease of maintenance and low pressure drops) that make them a strong candidate for post-combustion carbon capture. A performance model for a stacked flat sheet membrane module is reported in this work. The model is based on the reported specifications for the Gen 2...

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), along with other novel adsorbents, are frequently proposed as candidate materials to selectively adsorb CO2 for carbon capture processes. However, adsorbents designed to strongly bind CO2 nearly always bind H2O strongly (sometimes even more so). Given that water is present in significant quantities in the inlet stre...

Piezoelectric materials have been studied for nearly a century now. Initially employed in sonar technology, piezoelectric materials now have a vast set of applications including energy harvesting, sensing and actuation, and have found their way into our everyday lives. Piezoelectric material properties are being further enhanced to improve their pe...

Hollow fiber membrane contactors (HFMCs) can effectively separate CO 2 from post-combustion flue gas by providing a high contact surface area between the flue gas and a liquid solvent. Accurate models of carbon capture HFMCs are necessary to understand the underlying transport processes and optimize HFMC designs. There are various methods for model...

We have developed polymer composite inks that may be three-dimensionally (3D) printed to produce new reactor designs for CO2 capture. These inks are composed of solid sodium carbonate particles dispersed within an uncured silicone and are printed using direct ink writing (DIW). After printing, the silicone is cured, and the structures are hydrated...

Micro-encapsulated solvents (MECS) have been proposed for flue gas CO2 capture. However, relatively little is known about the collective behavior of MECS in fixed or fluidized beds. Therefore, we extended our model for microcapsule CO2 capture (Finn and Galvin, 2018) to a CFD-DEM framework. Temperature and CO2 absorption measurements for microcapsu...

A detailed model of a capsule containing sodium carbonate solution is developed here to study the microencapsulated carbon capture solvents (MECS). A rigorous vapor-liquid equilibrium (VLE) model is developed for the Na2CO3-CO2-H2O system, where liquid phase nonideality is modeled by the electrolyte non-random two-liquid (eNRTL) model. The data fro...

We encapsulated six solvents with novel physical and chemical properties for CO2 sorption within gas-permeable polymer shells, creating Micro-Encapsulated CO2 Sorbents (MECS), to improve the CO2 absorption kinetics and handling of the solvents for post-combustion CO2 capture from flue gas. The solvents were sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) solution, uncat...

Micro-Encapsulated CO 2 Sorbents (MECS) are a promising technology for post-combustion carbon capture because they enable slow-reacting solvents like carbonate solution to compete with traditional amine solvents. Before scaling up MECS for pilot testing, modeling is needed to design a MECS absorber and quantify its size and energy penalty. To that...

Maximum thermal efficiency is commonly assumed to correspond to minimum entropy generation. However, previous work has disproven this assumption for various power generation systems. In order to reconcile these two optimization approaches, second law analysis is performed here in terms of specific entropy generation (SEG), defined as the total entr...

An accurate, comprehensive model for the individual and simultaneous electro-oxidation of H2 and CO on Ni-YSZ is necessary to predict SOFC performance for a range of gaseous fuels. A mechanism that combines hydrogen (H) spillover to YSZ with oxygen (O) spillover to nickel is implemented in a previously-validated 1D-MEA model with detailed gas-phase...

A breast milk storage and delivery system including: a breast attachment configured to receive a supply of breast milk; a reservoir operatively connected to the breast attachment interface, the reservoir having: an inlet end, the inlet end having an attachment mechanism configured to receive milk supplied to the reservoir from the breast attachment...

An indirect carbon fuel cell (ICFC) system that couples coal gasification to a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is a promising candidate for high efficiency stationary power. This study couples an equilibrium gasifier model to a detailed 1D MEA model to study the theoretical performance of an ICFC system run on steam or carbon dioxide. Results show tha...

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have proposed combining coal gasification with a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), which could generate electricity from coal with much greater efficiency while halving the greenhouse gas emissions.

One of the distinct advantages of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) is their ability to directly oxidize CO in addition to H2, which allows them to be run on syngas mixtures. However, membrane-electrode-assembly (MEA) models typically neglect CO electrochemistry in the presence of H2 and H2O, assuming that the water–gas-shift reaction proceeds faster...

Growing concern over greenhouse gas emissions has driven research into clean coal power production alternatives. Novel coal power plant designs that lower CO2 emissions are imperative in the coming decades to mitigate global temperature rise. High-efficiency stationary power systems that integrate coal gasification with solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC...

SOFCs can directly oxidize CO in addition to H2, which allows them to be coupled to a gasifier. Many membrane-electrode-assembly (MEA) models neglect CO electrochemistry due to sluggish kinetics and the water-gas-shift reaction, but CO oxidation may be important for high CO-content syngas. The 1D-MEA model presented here incorporates detailed mecha...

SOFCs are capable of directly oxidizing CO in addition to H 2 , which allows them to be coupled to a gasifier that converts coal, biomass or other carbonaceous fuels to synthesis gas. Most membrane-electrode-assembly (MEA) models neglect CO electrochemistry because H 2 oxidizes more readily and most CO presumably shifts to H 2 by the water-gas-shif...

Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) systems possess the capability for highly-efficient power production at a low level of emissions. However, these fragile, high-temperature cells are prone to thermal failure, which shortens their life-span and hinders their marketability. Thermal radiation has proven itself effective at mitigating temperature gradients,...

Methane steam reforming was simulated with the Hyper 1D-SOFC model run offline. The objectives of this study were to verify the adequacy of the first-order steam reforming model, and to determine what operating conditions would lead to excessive inlet cooling, or inlet " freezing ". A first order model was simulated along with three other kinetic m...