Carbon Capture Turn Factory Smoke into Valuable Minerals

Airovation Technologies, an Israeli startup uses a new carbon capture technique, developed at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, that transforms the emissions into profitable minerals, instead of securing it underground like conventional technologies.

The core technology was tested and proven at the UL Laboratories in Chicago, IL on high concentration CO2 streams. The company says it can turn one tonne of carbon dioxide a day into minerals, and by 2024 it expects to “mineralize” 15 tonnes a day, in a single plant, according to an article by nocamels.

“The idea is simple: we take carbon emissions, and use the carbon itself as a feedstock,” says Marat Maayan, CEO and Co-founder of the company. “We help factories become zero-carbon emitters. Especially those that are really struggling to shift to zero carbon, like the glass industry, which generates emissions from the raw materials that they are melting.”

Airovation collaborates with its partners, building sites near their factories that can turn polluting carbon emissions into sodium carbonate and bicarbonate, and potassium carbonate and bicarbonate.

Businesses, particularly in Europe, receive a certain number of ‘carbon credits’ every year, representing the right to emit CO2, above which they have to pay penalty. Maayan gives an example of one of its partners, a European glass factory, which has to pay around 100 euros for each tonne of carbon dioxide it emits.

“Now, we’re not only managing to bring in zero carbon emissions on their site and help them save millions of euros in penalties a year,” he says, “but we are also able to supply them with minerals that have a neutral carbon footprint for a lower price.”

Sources: nocamels, Airovation Technologies.