SBIR Phase II: Reactive CO2 Capture via Inorganic Carbonate Crystallization

Despite ambitious targets set by businesses and government to reduce emissions and improve sustainability, industries lack the scalable technologies to achieve these goals. While promising methods to capture and convert CO2 into value-added products including fuels and chemicals have been commercialized, these pathways are thermodynamically uphill, energy-intensive, and require temperatures above 75 ºC. The company is developing a novel single-step, low temperature adaptive process for the integrated capture and conversion of CO2 into valuable calcium and magnesium carbonates, which can be used as input materials for downstream applications such as aggregates for the construction industry and fillers/extenders for the paint and paper industry. The single-step, thermodynamically downhill approaches developed by the company do not consume corrosive acids or bases for carbon mineralization, and instead use environmentally benign, recyclable solvents that transfer CO2 from the gas to the liquid phase, and from the liquid phase to solid carbonates. Through this DOE project, the company seeks to further tune and refine the system for high-capacity processing, first establishing scalability and refining process operations on a 150 L reactor with 1 tonne per year CO2 capture capacity, followed by construction of a scaled-up unit with a CO2 capture capacity of 100 tonnes per year. This scaled up system will be deployed at a site operated by pilot partners in the steel industry. The Phase II work encompasses system scaleup and optimization to support efficient resource use, process continuity, and an attractive TEA and LCA for adopters. Successful accomplishment of the Phase II objectives will inform operating principles needed for commercial deployment, positioning the technology for multi-site deployment and broader market launch. This technology can be adapted to create a new market for synthetic inorganic carbonates from anthropogenic CO2 as opposed to mining naturally occurring carbonates. The company believes that this adaptive environmentally sustainable technology can meet the unaddressed need to simultaneously treat multiple heterogeneous waste streams and produce value-added products.