February 02, 2009
by Salvatore Salamone
Technology that promises to economically sequester carbon dioxide by turning it into fuel is poised to make the move from research labs to the development stage.
Carbon Sciences, a California startup, is planning a prototype project for early 2009 that the company will use to evaluate the challenges of commercializing its new conversion technology.
In many past efforts to break apart carbon dioxide for other uses, the processes required high temperatures and high pressures. As a result, many efforts used a large amount of energy, making the operation at best less attractive and at worst economically impractical. Additionally, the equipment necessary to perform the transformation had to withstand the high temperatures and pressures. This drove up the price of building a conversion facility.
Carbon Sciences offers an alternative that would perform the transformation at lower temperatures. "We have a handle on the fundamentals," said Derek McLeish, president and CEO of the company.
At the heart of its approach are biocatalytics and processes developed by the company. "The biocatalytic processes we are exploiting in our technology actually occur in all living organisms where carbon atoms, extracted from CO2, and hydrogen atoms, extracted from H2O, are combined to create hydrocarbon molecules," according to Carbon Sciences.
The entire operation works at lower temperatures and is more energy efficient than traditional approaches in converting carbon dioxide to something else.
Today's geopolitical environment, in which many countries around the world are trying to rein in their carbon emissions, makes CO2-to-fuel research a global affair.
To that end, Carbon Sciences has garnered the attention of strategic partners in India, China, and the Middle East. In fact, international interest is so high, "we will probably see the technology adopted overseas first," said McLeish.
Additionally, other researchers are pursuing different approaches to economically convert carbon dioxide into fuel.
At the Sandia National Laboratories, researchers working on the Sunshine to Petrol project are testing a prototype device called the counter rotating ring receiver reactor recuperator. The device uses sunlight to split carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen, and water into hydrogen and oxygen. These separated elements can then be combined into liquid fuels, including gasoline, jet fuel and methanol.
Broad Appeal
As is the case with the Carbon Sciences technology, Sandia's carbon dioxide conversion process works at lower temperatures than previous efforts.
Naturally, an economical technology that converts carbon dioxide to fuel would be very useful for carbon sequestration. While radically different, the approaches being developed by Carbon Sciences and Sandia share one property that is ideally suited to dealing with coal plant carbon dioxide emissions: Both are intended to work with existing facilities. In particular, both could recycle streams of carbon dioxide discharged from fossil-fuel plants.
Even with this potential use in the energy industry, the economics to move the technology out of the lab might be helped because of its application in several other fields. For example, in October, CNN reported on the work of UK researchers from Newcastle University who are focusing on converting carbon dioxide into cyclic carbonates. Such compounds are widely used in the chemical industry and in manufacturing to produce products including paint-strippers and solvents.
There is growing interest in using the byproducts of a carbon dioxide conversion process as the input into many chemical industry processes. For example, many of the byproducts are useful components in making herbicides, according to industry experts. The paper industry is also interested in both carbonates and carbon dioxide reduction.
Another boost for the adoption of carbon dioxide to fuel conversion could come from the growing interest in new fuels. The economics will depend heavily on the price of gasoline.
Taking these conditions into account, use of new carbon-reduction technologies, like those being developed by Carbon Sciences, Sandia, Newcastle University and others, seems to have solid market appeal. What needs to be demonstrated is the economics of commercializing the technologies.
A promising method with a very low yield rate might not justify the costs of operating a conversion plant. Similarly, a facility that experiences many breakdowns and process problems might carry too high a labor or operational cost to run.
For these reasons, the development of a prototype project like the one being undertaken by Carbon Sciences is essential. The information gleaned from a pilot will allow a better assessment of the commercial potential for these technologies.
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EnergyBiz magazine is the thought-leading, award-winning publication of the emerging power industry. This article originally appeared in the January/February 2009 issue.
More information is available from Energy Central:
Chilled Ammonia Gets a Warm Reception - Tackling Carbon Dioxide, EnergyBiz, May/June 2008
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