Pilot plant to turn CO₂ emissions into green building materials

A CO₂ mineral carbonation research pilot plant, to be established at the University of Newcastle (UoN), will trial a new method for permanently and safely storing carbon emissions generated from fossil fuels and other industrial processes. The aim of the technology is to turn the captured emissions into forms of solid carbonate rock for either safe disposal or use as green building materials in the construction industry.

The project will be conducted over four years with a budget of $9.12m, with $3.04m each from the Australian and NSW governments and Orica. The plant will be managed by Mineral Carbonation International (MCi), a partnership between UoN’s commercial arm Newcastle Innovation, GreenMag Group and Orica. It will be built at the university’s Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources and use CO₂ captured at Orica’s nearby Kooragang Island manufacturing facility. It is expected to be operational by 2017.

The method is the result of six years of R&D undertaken by UoN, GreenMag Group and Orica. A multidisciplinary research team, including Professors Bodgan Dlugogorski and Eric Kennedy from UoN’s Priority Research Centre for Energy and Orica Senior Research Associate Dr Geoff Brent, has demonstrated the technology in small-scale laboratory settings and led the funding bids.

The pilot plant will determine whether the necessary step-change can be made towards successful scale-up and commercialisation. It will also undertake further research into mineral carbonation technology - a process which mimics and accelerates the Earth’s natural carbon sink mechanism by combining CO₂ with low-grade minerals to create inert carbonates, which are similar to common baking soda.

“The Earth’s natural mineral carbonation system is very slow,” Professor Kennedy said. “Our challenge is to speed up that process to prevent CO₂ emissions accumulating in the air in a cost-effective way.”

Orica will provide its technical expertise to support the technology’s development to help reduce the environmental footprint of mining operations. Dr Brent said the company has a strong incentive to invest in solutions that could deliver carbon reductions on a commercially and environmentally sustainable basis, and that mineral carbonation represents an exciting opportunity to develop a secure and potentially large-scale approach for carbon emissions while producing valuable by-products.

MCi CEO Marcus St John Dawe explained, “The major difference between this and geosequestration is that we are permanently transforming CO₂, not just storing it underground … It’s ideal for NSW, where there is an abundance of low-grade mineral deposits that fit our environmental standards and don’t compete with farming land. The potential exists to create many new jobs in a cleaner energy industry.”

The project was publicly launched by Orica Managing Director and CEO Ian Smith, NSW Resources and Energy Minister the Hon Chris Hartcher MP, Chief Scientist of Geoscience Australia Dr Clinton Foster and representatives from UoN.