Greenhouse gas emissions could be converted into valuable products such as building materials, following the creation of a spin-out company to commercialise carbon capture and conversion technology.
The new company, called CCM, aims to commercialise technology developed by researchers at the University of Aberdeen. The technology is capable of converting carbon dioxide emissions into carbonates for use in products such as plastics, adhesives, cements, concretes and other construction materials, according to Dr Mohammed Imbabi from the university’s School of Engineering, who is leading the project.
“If you’re trying to deal with global CO2 emissions approaching 40 gigatonnes per annum, you need a sink in which to put these emissions that is big enough to accommodate them, and the construction industry is probably one of the few that can do that,” said Imbabi.
The technology dissolves the CO2 in dilute alkali, converting it into carbonate ions. The carbonate solution is then reacted with either calcium or magnesium brines to produce Precipitated Calcium Carbonate (PCC) or Precipitated Magnesium Carbonate (PMC).
The converted feedstocks, which are carbon negative, can be used in a range of industries. PCCs are already used in paper making, plastics, paints, and adhesives, for example, while the researchers have recently developed a cementised PMC for use in buildings. The material can be cast into its final shape and thermally cured at low temperatures.
Cementised PMCs have low density but high compressive strength. They are water resistant, non-toxic, fireproof, and have good thermal and acoustic insulation properties.
The technology can use waste calcium and magnesium brines from sources such as desalination plants, and oil and gas production.
Unlike many other proposed techniques, the technology can capture CO2 from any emission source, said Imbabi. Although the team are initially focusing on developing the technology for large industrial settings such as power stations, cement factories and breweries, it could ultimately be used to capture emissions from people’s homes and cars, he said.
“Our focus is on large CO2 emitters first of all, because we want to push down as quickly as we can on emissions, but we also have a development stream which is looking at miniaturising the technology, so for example you could have a carbon capture machine fitted to your home,” said Imbabi.
The technology recently progressed to the semi-finals of the $20 million NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, which is designed to accelerate the development and commercialisation of technologies to convert CO2 into valuable products.
The project also includes Emeritus Professor Fred Glasser, Chair in Chemistry at the university, and Professor Zoe Morrison, previously of the University of Aberdeen Business School.
I think the problem with any carbon capture process that actually converts CO2 into something else is that energy is required, e.g. to create the dilute alkali that this process uses, but more fundamentally to break the two C=O bonds and turn the carbon dioxide into something else. If there’s a clean energy source (e.g. tidal power, or wind, or solar) available to drive the process, surely it could be used more efficiently in displacing the CO2 emitter in the first place?
Oh dear! I read the headline and my heart sank. Almost all cheap, common (read sodium, potasium, calcium) alkali metals are found in nature as carbonates….! Need I say more?
If this what passes for university research in Aberdeen?
By all means, point out what I have missed?
By the way, “valuable” building products need to be cheap to be truly valuable to the building and civil engineering industries!
Subsidy and grants are the cause of this type of research: the benefits are as Hugh says, negligible.
Surely, the best way to capture and store carbon is in trees and other high carbon crops. These can eventually be buried (to form coal possibly) or stored inertly at the poles for future use. All trees should be protected, not harvested for inefficient combustion (especially compared with coal).
If you react carbonic acid with brine you will release chlorine. Where does that go?
Wouldn’t it just be better to stop re-cycling paper and bury it? The new trees you’d need to grow to replace the paper you’d buried would capture loads of atmospheric CO2!
Whilst I share the scepticism about the source of alkalis and energy, in making building materials there are some carbon dioxide emissions that cannot be displaced by renewable energy. Cement production and glass production release CO2 from carbonates, whatever the energy source. I agree that the big question is how best to sequester those emissions on the scale of cement production.