Mantra Sees Future In Recycling CO2
March 11, 2009
By Deirdre Brennan -- A new technology being developed in Canada has the potential to revolutionize the lifecycle of carbon dioxide.
Venture capital group Mantra, which invests in renewable energy and environmentally friendly technologies, has developed a chemical process that turns CO2 into an organic acid with various industrial uses. While this sounds like a magical process akin to spinning straw into gold, the new technology—dubbed the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide, or ERC—is very real.
“We are taking CO2, this climate killing gas, and turning it into formate [formic acid],” explains Larry Kristof, president and chief executive officer of Mantra Venture Group.
Mantra bought the rights to the ERC technology from a group of scientists at the University of British Columbia in 2007, and since then has been working to refine the process—which has been proven to work in small quantities—to make it commercially viable.
ERC involves capturing CO2 and combing it with water to produce formic acid, which among other things can be used as a substitute for hydrochloric acid. The steel industry is a large consumer of hydrochloric acid, using it to remove rust and stop oxidation.
“Steel plants currently use 340 tons of hydrochloric acid per day—all of which could be replaced with the more environmentally friendly formic acid,” says Kristof, who explains that the technology is easily scalable.
“The [ERC] process takes one ton of CO2 and turns it into one ton of formic acid,” Kristof says. “Our technology ramps up very quickly. If we have success on the one-ton level, we can move to 100 tons and then to 600 tons.”
According to a report published by research firm Global Industry Analysts, the world market for formic acid is projected to reach 573 thousand tons by the year 2012. Some of the key players already involved in producing formic acid include such chemical giants as BASF, Celanese Chemicals, Kemira, Perstorp and SAMSUNG Fine Chemicals.
“There is already a market for formic acid, and then when you add the additional carbon removal, it is a viable technology,” says Kristof.
ERC Versus Other CO2 Reduction Technologies
While ERC looks like a promising technology in the fight to curb greenhouse gases, a more commonly discussed technology is carbon capture and storage, or CCS. Kristof admits that CCS is a competing technology, but he says that there is so much carbon that needs to be removed from the atmosphere that the two technologies can easily co-exist. However, he isn’t shy about touting what he believes are ERC’s advantages over the more conventional CSS technology.
He says that unlike CCS, which aims to simply remove CO2 from the atmosphere, Mantra’s technology goes a step further, treating the greenhouse gas as a commodity that can be transformed to create non-harmful, organic and financially profitable products.
Kristof is optimistic about expanding the uses for formate—including turning it into an alternative source of energy.
“Mantra is very interested in fuel cells that are powered by our end product, because that gives us a closed loop situation,” he says.
Another feature of Mantra’s technology is that it works at a low temperature. In other words, the ERC process does not require the burning of fossil fuels to cause the thermo-chemical reactions needed to turn CO2 into formate. Rather, the ERC process works at near ambient temperatures and thus can be fueled by renewable sources of energy such as hydro, wind, solar and nuclear power.
What Is Next For ERC?
So when should we expect to see our first large-scale ERC facility? According to Kristof, the firm is working on building a pilot plant, and onsite testing is scheduled to start in early 2010.
“If our tests come up positive with our pilot plant, you could see this erected within four years,” he says.
Kristof admits his timeframe is aggressive, but he is optimistic. “We are developing it in leaps and bounds,” he says.
“We have a massive problem with CO2, and we can keep coming up with technologies like these for the rest of our lives and we’ll only make a dent.”
Mantra has filed for a worldwide patent for its ERC technology, and is also in the process of being listed on the TSX Venture Exchange in Canada.
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