CO2 compressor

Ramgen Power Systems has been awarded $20m from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to scale-up a device that uses supersonic shockwaves to compress CO2 for capture and storage.

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 COemitted 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.

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