Enzymes make carbon capture cleaner and smarter. Replace the chemicals traditionally used for post-combustion carbon capture with biological enzymes. Enzymatic carbon capture can make your process more affordable, sustainable and convenient. Saipem and Novozymes are collaborating to offer this innovative technology to the market.
Carbon capture is crucial
The global scientific community agrees: the planet cannot avoid being impacted by climate change. But we can counteract the severity of it – if we act immediately.
Carbon capture technology is crucial to reduce industrial emissions even after renewable energy alternatives are widely adopted. “Reaching net-zero will be virtually impossible without carbon capture, utilization and storage,” says the autonomous International Energy Agency. What’s more, the world must become carbon negative in the latter half of this century, reports the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Carbon capture can achieve an estimated 14% of the global greenhouse gas emissions reductions needed by 2050, according to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to forge practical solutions to climate change. It’s also considered the only practical way to achieve deep decarbonization in the industrial sector.
Using nature’s own CO2 regulator in industry
The enzymatic carbon capture process uses the biological enzyme carbonic anhydrase instead of conventional chemicals to extract CO2 from the flue gas. The traditional method creates degradation products that can harm people and the environment.
Carbonic anhydrase is active in the human lung and in all living creatures every time an organism breathes. It can convert HCO3- (bicarbonate) into CO2 just as effectively as it can convert CO2 into HCO3-. One of nature’s fastest-working enzymes, carbonic anhydrase reacts 1 million times per second.
Affordable carbon capture
The stripping step in the enzymatic carbon capture process requires thermal energy at 80°C; traditional carbon capture requires 120°C. According to a study by SINTEF, one of Europe’s largest independent research organizations, using waste heat from a cement plant, for example, can save at least 25% of carbon capture and liquefaction costs.
What’s more, unlike conventional solvents, enzymes are not corrosive. This increases process reliability and means you can use less expensive steel or plastic equipment. Because enzymes tolerate flue gas contaminants, you don’t have the expense of gas pre-treatment either.
Sustainable carbon capture
The enzymatic carbon capture process produces no toxic waste, aerosols or contaminants. Requiring less energy than the conventional process, it is based on nature’s own technique for CO2 regulation. Traditional solvents used for carbon capture are produced from the hazardous chemicals ethylene oxide and ammonia.
Carbon capture that uses only traditional chemicals and energy-intensive processes strains Earth’s resources. Enzymatic carbon capture protects them.
Captured carbon has many uses
What happens to the carbon that is captured? While most in the near future will be safely stored underground in geologic storage facilities, productive new opportunities are constantly emerging. Carbon capture can also be a source of revenue.
For example, captured carbon is being used to:
Manufacture building materials
Produce fertilizer with less environmental impact
Carbonate beer and soft drinks
Enrich greenhouses
Support Power-to-X solutions
Produce methanol