CO2 compressor

has been awarded $20m (£12m) from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to scale-up a device that uses supersonic shockwaves to compress CO

for capture and storage (CCS).

The funding, from the US Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy and its National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), is expected to accelerate commercial deployment of the CO₂ compressor, dubbed the Rampressor, for CCS in most industrial settings.

Many industrial plants generate CO₂ during manufacturing processes. In the European Union, CCS is seen as one way of helping to meet emissions targets and there are plans to build 10 to 12 CCS plants in the region by 2015.

CCS works by capturing CO₂ emitted from exhaust gases and storing it in saline formations, depleted oil-and-gas reservoirs, or unmineable coal seams.

A required step in this process is compressing the CO₂ so it can be transported by pipeline or tankers to the place where it will be stored.