The world’s smallest industrial carbon capture solution – CycloneCC – was launched today by Carbon Clean. This marks a milestone in the industry, as carbon capture tech has been custom built for the specific needs of plants and companies, whereas CycloneCC is a modular, scalable technology.
The company’s co-founders – CEO Aniruddha Sharma and CTO Prateek Bumb – spoke at an online event for unveiling the CycloneCC and shared that its footprint will be ten times smaller than conventional carbon capture, making it easily deployable in less than 8 weeks.
The solution will also drive down the cost of carbon capture to $30/tonne on average – a cost that is well below the current EU carbon price which stands at $68.92 at the time of writing. This could be a game-change for carbon capture as it basically becomes economically viable and fulfils its role of combating climate change.
In the Q&A panel after the unveiling the senior management of the company shared that they plan to build their own “megafactory”, as they look to satisfy demand for carbon capture technology and services in the coming years and decades. The clients they will be targeting are from industries like steel, cement and refining and with expectations that this could turn into a multi-trillion dollar market (a number mentioned by Exxon recently) they could have a serious “first to market” advantage.
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Financing of projects was also discussed along with the company’s Carbon Capture as a Service (CCaaS) direction. Participants in a poll during the event seemed to favor fully funded carbon capture projects, as opposed to an outright equipment purchase.
UK Energy & Climate Change Minister, Greg Hands spoke about the support provided by the government and its role in the future: “Backed by £5 million of government funding, Carbon Clean’s innovative new technology will help make the widespread industrial adoption of carbon capture a reality, supporting UK industries to decarbonise while attracting new investment as we work towards ending our contribution to climate change by 2050.”
The technology has been successfully pilot tested at 1 TPD in the UK and US and is currently being commercialised at 10 TPD and 100 TPD with select partners, including CEMEX and Veolia, for final product roll out by summer 2022 and market roll out in 2023.
CycloneCC uses two proven technologies: Carbon Clean’s advanced, proprietary amine-promoted buffer salt solvent (APBS-CDRMax®) and rotating packed beds (RPBs).
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When used together they ensure CycloneCC is far more efficient than conventional carbon capture methods, reducing costs while matching the performance. Using RPBs, instead of a conventional large chimney stack, improves the absorption of CO2 into the solvent, and has a ten times smaller footprint. It is expected to deliver cost of carbon capture of $30/tonne.
The size of carbon capture technology has been a significant barrier to adoption. Earlier this month, a Decarb Connect survey of hard-to-abate industries – Scaling up CCUS – market insights – found that physical space remains a major concern and that industries need to be able to integrate carbon capture solutions within their existing footprint.
Read more: Carbon Clean to Build New Carbon Capture Plant in India
