One way to tackle climate change and greenhouse gas emissions is to capture CO2 from fossil-fuelled power stations, hard to abate industrial processes and new transition energy sectors like blue Hydrogen production. The captured CO2 is transported to a site by ship or pipeline and injected into geological reservoirs for permanent storage. This process, is called carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Depending on the capture and combustion processes within an industrial application, the flue gases from CO2 producers contain various contaminants and impurities, with one of the primary ones being water. The CO2 dissolves in the free water phase, reducing the pH to about 3 leading to the formation of carbonic acid which causes significant corrosion leading to leaks and catastrophic pipeline failure.

AIX’s sensor will form the backbone of a real-time moisture monitoring system for CCS facilities to prevent corrosion. It will monitor the water concentrations from each CO2 producer in the network and alert the operator when a producer has exceeded the water threshold and the pipeline will be shut down.