Companies working on carbon capture3/8/2024 Saipem’s CCS process, leveraging Novozymes’ optimized carbonic anhydrase enzymes (derived from high temperature stable microorganisms), is currently available to the market at a capacity of 200 tons of CO2 per day (“Bluenzyme™ 200”). ![]() That’s precisely what Novozymes and Saipem are working to change. And it’s not the first choice for companies that view CCS as nothing more than a nuisance and are more likely to choose the more established technology. ![]() It’s not optimized and currently suffers from scalability challenges just like traditional methods. And the enzyme is activated at only 80 oC, meaning that waste heat that is produced during whatever industrial process the company is engaging in can be redirected to facilitate the release of captured CO2.īut enzymatic carbon capture is a very new technology compared to traditional carbon capture methods. Because the waste product of the enzyme is bicarbonate, equipment doesn’t become corroded and lasts much longer, saving on materials costs, and the environment isn’t contaminated by toxic byproducts. ![]() It’ll work on flue gasses as they exit the flue - no purification required. Carbonic anhydrase can absorb a million CO2 molecules per second. Perhaps most nonsensical, however, is the carbon released into the environment during traditional CCS, first to provide the energy to heat the solvent and later during recovery of the oil captured CO2 is pushed back into the ground to help extract.Įnzymatic carbon capture, on the other hand, is both an incredibly efficient and completely benign process. Additionally, nitrogen is already a significant environmental concern - with each ton of carbon requiring half a kilogram of nitrogen to produce solvent, the amount of nitrogen released into the environment during scaled carbon capture is just going to do more damage to our planet’s ecosystems (along with other toxic byproducts released during the process). Then, once you’ve captured the CO2, the costs of heating the solvent to release captured CO2 back to where you want it represent up to 25% of the cost of the entire CCS pipeline. While this process has been optimized over the last 50 years and is highly efficient, there are some critical issues that have complicated scaled application.īefore you can even capture CO2, flue gasses must be purified. The released CO2 can then be directed elsewhere often, it is pushed underground for enhanced oil recovery. ![]() Captured CO2 can then be converted back into gaseous form and released when the solvent is heated to 120 oC. Solvent-based carbon capture, also called amine carbon capture, uses solvents created from nitrogen to capture CO2 from flue gasses. Called enzymatic carbon capture, the process was developed as a more efficient, less expensive, and greener alternative to the solvent-based capture technology that has been in use since the 1970s. It’s an elegant process that Novozymes, together with global engineering company Saipem, is applying on an industrial scale. That work is centered around an enzyme that has existed in nature for as long as breathing has been a thing: carbonic anhydrase.Ĭarbonic anhydrase is a two-way enzyme that captures CO2 from our cells and converts it into carbonate so it can be safely transported through our bloodstream to our lungs, where carbonic anhydrase then turns it back into exhalable CO2. Lassen will be participating in a lighting talk at the SynBioBeta Conference in Oakland at the end of this month, where he’ll describe the work that Novozymes is doing to make CCS a more efficient, affordable option.
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