Canadian firm publishes details on CO2 to fuel pilot

(Credit: Carbon Engineering)

In a new paper published in Joule, the company describes the results from a pilot plant it has been operating in British Columbia since 2015. The plant has been capturing 1 t-CO₂/day using giant fans to draw air through an aqueous solution of potassium hydroxide (KOH) coupled to a calcium caustic recovery loop. Working with an independent engineering consultancy, Carbon Engineering has extrapolated the cost of building the process out to scale and integrating it with renewable energy. According to the firm, the cost should be roughly $94-$232 per ton of carbon dioxide captured.

What’s more, the company has developed a process to transform the captured CO₂ into hydrocarbon fuels such as petrol, diesel and jet fuel. The facility in British Columbia is already achieving CO₂ capture and fuel generation

"The carbon dioxide generated via direct air capture can be combined with sequestration for carbon removal, or it can enable the production of carbon-neutral hydrocarbons, which is a way to take low-cost carbon-free power sources like solar or wind and channel them into fuels that can be used to decarbonise the transportation sector," said lead author David Keith, founder and chief scientist of Carbon Engineering and a professor of applied physics and public policy at Harvard University.