Carbon Sciences, Inc. (Carbon Sciences), a US based developer of GreenCarbon Technology to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into a useful form, has completed the anticipated prototype, engineered to demonstrate its biocatalytic CO2-to-Fuel process. Applying Carbon Sciences' technology in a laboratory scale prototype, the company has transformed a stream of CO2 gas into methanol fuel.
The demonstration prototype uses Carbon Sciences’ innovative biocatalytic process to break down CO2 and water, then combines the carbon and hydrogen to form methanol, a low level liquid fuel. The resulting methanol is directly usable as a fuel, or it can be used to build higher-level fuels such as gasoline, butanol and jet fuel. The company is currently underway with the design and development of expanded biocatalytic process technologies to create these higher-level fuels from CO2.
This is a major milestone for Carbon Sciences, said Byron Elton, president and chief operating officer of Carbon Sciences. The prototype demonstrates that our CO2-to-Fuel concept works. More importantly, it provides our technology team evidence that we are headed in the right direction. We can now successfully demonstrate what we have always believed — that CO2, the very cause of the problem, provides the solution to the world’s energy and climate challenges.
Hailed by USA Today as the company furthest along in the CO2-to-fuels quest, Carbon Sciences’ technology that transforms CO2 into fuel provides the most direct path and a substantial cost advantage over other renewable fuel technologies such as those based on terrestrial crops.
Our competitive edge is in the innovative nano-engineering of the biocatalyst that allows it to perform its CO2 to fuel function not once, but millions of times, thereby lowering the production cost of fuel. While the prototype has not reached this level of performance, we are confident that we can achieve that as we scale up our technology, said the technology’s inventor and Carbon Sciences’ chief technology officer, Naveed Aslam.
This prototype demonstrates the efficiencies of Carbon Sciences’ technology over any other methods available, said Derek McLeish, Carbon Sciences’ chairman and chief executive officer. With oil refineries and utilities facing legislation that may impose large fees for each ton of CO2 released into the air, our technology is finding increasing value in the marketplace. With our CO2-to-Fuel technology, mitigating CO2 emissions doesn’t have to be an expense. Instead, it can be a lucrative revenue stream for large CO2 emitting companies and countries.
Our ultimate goal is to license this technology to energy companies and large CO2 emitters globally, added Elton. We estimate that by 2030, using just 25% of the CO2 emissions from coal usage alone, we can produce enough fuel to provide 30% of the global liquid fuel demand. There is no other single approach, whether it is biodiesel or cellulosic ethanol, that can match this impact in addressing the energy and climate challenges.