Massachusetts start-up Novomer says it has made significant technical process recently turning unwanted CO2 into plastics and coatings for industrial use.
The company, which is on the front lines of the emerging carbon sequestration industry, claims the yield from its laboratory process jumped per pound of cobalt-based catalyst it adds to production. The efficiency improvement should offer a potential boast to profitability as its technology moves from the lab to commercial application.
Novomer will announce Tuesday it won a $2.1 million DOE grant to design a pilot plant. Company will compete for plant construction funding later this year
The gain is an important step for an industry with a gargantuan task. Carbon capture is one of a handful of techniques – along with wind energy and solar – shouldering a critical burden in the battle against global warming. Instead of finding a new way to produce electricity, such as from the rays of the sun, like solar, carbon capture is intended to coral the trillions of pounds of carbon produced each year from traditional energy generation before it is released into the atmosphere.
Some sequestration techniques hope to bury the carbon. Novomer plans to turn it into useful products, such as the coating on a soda can.
The company said Tuesday it won an important vote of confidence in the form of a $2.1 million grant from the Department of Energy to design a pilot plant. Novomer was one of 12 companies to receive $100 million in funding. Each of the companies will compete later this year for a second, larger round of funding to build the plants. Only about six are expected to win.
Novomer Vice President of Business Development Peter Shepard says the efficiency improvements are critical to the company’s efforts. But he points out that challenges remain. One important hurdle involves turning a reaction conducted in isolation the lab into a continuous process appropriate for commercial development. Then too, Novomer must figure out which product will be the most lucrative to produce.
There is no doubt, however, about the significance of the effort. Shepard estimates Novomer’s production should be able to sequester 30 to 50 billion pounds of CO2 each year, or the emissions of four to six coal fired power plants.
No one single solution is going to solve global warming, he says. Each will help.
