Help Close a Critical Knowledge Gap in CO₂ Pipeline Integrity
Carbon dioxide pipeline operators model corrosion, specify impurity limits and design corrosion allowances.
The challenge is understanding what happens when various impurities interact, liquids form and operating conditions move beyond what static laboratory testing can fully explain.
The Challenge Isn't Just Corrosion. It's Understanding Where It Happens.
Carbon capture, transportation and storage projects are expanding rapidly, bringing new CO₂ transportation systems into service. While relatively pure CO₂ is generally understood to be non-corrosive, captured CO₂ streams often contain varying combinations of water, oxygen, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and potentially other impurities such as hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen gases.
When impurities and water vapour interact with each other and with water under certain temperatures and pressures, liquid drop-out can occur. Reaction products may form a liquid film on the pipe surface, creating a highly corrosive environment that threatens pipeline integrity and that operators seek to avoid.
Operators already understand many of the corrosion mechanisms. Research conducted using autoclaves and other small pressure vessels has generated valuable information about corrosion rates and the conditions that can cause liquid or acid phases to form. What remains less understood is what happens after those phases appear inside a flowing pipeline.
Many future CO₂ transportation systems are also expected to receive streams from multiple emitters. Each source may contribute different impurities and concentrations, all within defined specifications. However, operating conditions do not always remain perfectly within those limits.
That uncertainty creates difficult questions:
- Where does liquid or acid accumulate? Does it create isolated areas of elevated corrosion risk?
- How do pipeline features such as low spots, branches and weld locations influence the risk?
- Which combinations of impurities present the greatest concern?
- What actions can operators take if an upset condition occurs?
- How can a pipeline safely return to normal operation afterward?
For operators making decisions about design, operation and integrity management, those questions matter as much as understanding corrosion mechanisms themselves.
Reducing uncertainty may help operators and emitters establish impurity limits and operating requirements that protect pipeline integrity without introducing unnecessary conservatism, avoidable stream restrictions or added project costs.
Informing the Next Generation of CO₂ Projects
Today, much of the available data is project specific, and industry understanding continues to evolve. The knowledge generated through this project is expected to contribute to industry understanding, future best practices and a stronger technical basis for designing and operating CO₂ transportation systems.
The project is also intended to create a unique test asset capable of addressing questions that cannot currently be answered through existing public-domain data. Participants will have the opportunity to investigate scenarios representative of their own applications while contributing to broader industry learning.
For operators planning infrastructure expected to operate safely over decades, reducing uncertainty is valuable in itself. Better understanding of impurity behaviour can support more confident design decisions, clearer operating procedures and a stronger technical basis for managing pipeline integrity throughout the asset lifecycle.
How C-FER Helps Industry Address Emerging CO₂ Pipeline Challenges
The proposed project involves designing and building a specialized flowing dense-phase CO₂ loop capable of controlling temperature, pressure, flow conditions and impurity concentrations while monitoring where liquid drop-out occurs and how it behaves. The facility will also allow researchers to investigate representative pipeline features such as branches, low spots and weld locations.
Building this type of capability is complex. Liquid formation must be detected, impurity concentrations must be tightly controlled and operating conditions must accurately represent transmission pipeline service. As a result, the challenge is larger than a single operator’s problem. That makes it well suited to a joint industry project.
By bringing together pipeline operators, manufacturers, researchers and engineering organizations, participants can share costs while generating knowledge that benefits the broader industry.
As carbon capture infrastructure continues to expand, understanding how impurities behave under real operating conditions may become just as important as designing the pipeline for corrosion itself. This project aims to provide the evidence needed to answer those questions before they become operational problems.
Contributor
Kelly Piers, MSc, PEng.
Principal Engineer, Business Development & Strategic Initiatives
Kelly Piers is a Principal Engineer at C FER Technologies. In this position, Kelly works on strategic and business planning for C-FER and focuses on identifying, developing and implementing C-FER’s strategic diversification objectives, working with a number of industry associations in Alberta and across Canada.
