North Haven, CT (July 20, 2022) – Precision Combustion, Inc. (PCI) received a highly competitive Small Business Innovation Research Phase I award from the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop PCI’s high efficiency technology for Direct Air Capture (DAC) of carbon dioxide (CO2) from air using low-cost waste heat sources, including from geothermal and data centers.
Direct Air Capture removes CO2 directly from air, with energy the primary cost. CO2 is readily captured using sorbents but requires significant energy to then regenerate the sorbent. Regeneration separates the captured CO2 from the sorbent such that the CO2 can be fed to an industrial process or carbon storage, and as a result the sorbent may be used repeatedly to capture more CO2.
PCI’s CO2 capture technology enables using low temperatures for regeneration. Using waste heat to provide that regeneration energy would significantly reduce the total energy costs of DAC, reduce or avoid dependence on conventional or even renewable power, and enable the carbon capture system to be more flexibly located where waste heat is found. Location flexibility also allows the DAC plant to be co-located with industrial processes that may use the captured CO2 in making advanced materials such as carbon neutral liquid fuels and intermediate chemicals, and may also supply waste heat.
In this new DOE project PCI will demonstrate using waste heat for sorbent regeneration and its suitability for minimizing costs towards meeting aggressive DOE targets. Initially, PCI will focus on three promising low carbon, low quality waste heat sources that may enable 24/7 DAC: hot rock geothermal, ground geothermal, and data center rejected heat. Beyond these targets, the underlying concept can be applied anywhere waste heat is generated.
PCI’s technology uses a nanostructured engineered sorbent specifically designed to minimize the energy required for regeneration while also achieving rapid regeneration at low temperatures. The required operating temperature is designed to be low enough that low-cost waste heat can be sufficient to accomplish the job, with the advantage being both reducing the energy needed while also keeping the cost of that energy low by using widely available waste heat sources. Another unique benefit of PCI’s CO2 DAC innovation is its compactness, allowing for a modular distributed approach that may be scaled to fit a variety of waste heat sources.
Kevin Burns, President of PCI, adds, “As the world increasingly accepts that we really need to achieve carbon neutrality, direct air capture will become a major contributor to the solution. As a result, the market should become very large. Ultimately minimizing energy costs will determine which technologies will be the winners. Our ability to minimize sorbent regeneration energy and temperature for regeneration combined with being able to use low-cost waste heat offers some great economics. The ability to locate more freely creates the opportunity to synergistically co-locate with and support new carbon utilization or storage industries as they emerge. All this will make our technology attractive to potential partners looking to thrive in the emerging low carbon emissions economy, especially those generating substantial waste heat or located near sources of waste heat as well as those who can integrate CO2 into their materials requirements. We will be looking at an early stage to form those relationships.”
Precision Combustion, Inc. is a clean energy and environmental technology company developing new reactors and systems for energy and environmental sector applications.
For more information, contact:
Stewart Rosenberg
Business Development Leader
Email: srosenberg@precision-combustion.com
