Optimal design of carbon capture and utilization system for India

Carbon capture is one of the proposed solutions to decarbonize thermal power plants, steel industry, cement industry, and refineries. However, the fate of the CO2 after it is captured is an important question. One option is sequestering it in sequestration sites such as exhausted oil and gas wells or geological formations. Here, the location of the emission site and the sequestration site is critical. The other option is to utilize it for making fuels, chemicals, and materials (CO2 valorization). The optimal strategy will depend on several factors, such as the cost of sequestration, distance, capacity of the carbon capture unit, cost of CO2 valorization, and so on.

The goal of this project is to develop an optimization model to recommend the optimal strategy. The model will capture the technology performance as well as other factors in the form of constraints. The objective function will be a combination of cost and greenhouse gas emissions (multi-objective optimization). The project will specifically look at the Indian scenario, and the outcome of the project will be identifying the optimal combination of these strategies for the next few decades to achieve net zero status.

This project is completely computational in nature. The student working on this project will be required to take appropriate courses related to optimization theory. Currently, AI/ML component is not envisioned in this project.