CO₂ Evolution®

TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW

Innovator Energy’s patented technology, CO₂ Evolution®, is a fundamentally novel approach for capturing CO₂. CO₂ Evolution® captures more than 90% of CO₂ from power plant flue gas at $5-8 per metric ton (OPEX), allowing power plants to profitably separate and sell CO₂ without government subsidies, carbon taxes or credits. CO₂ Evolution® is the first and only CO₂ capture technology powered by abundant low temperature condenser water, enabling the technology to have no parasitic load to a power plant. The technology comprises only low-cost reagents. Installing CO₂ Evolution® unit does not modify a power plant’s steam cycle.

BACKGROUND

Three years ago, Ethan Novek developed the concept of decoupling thermal energy input from CO₂ desorption as a means of reducing the temperature requirement (and parasitic load) of CO₂ capture. He devised a method of achieving this by using a thermally reversible reagent to strip CO₂ and then recovering the reagent using low temperature heat. The first versions of the technology involved using volatile, water soluble organic solvents, recoverable using distillation and published in the American Chemical Society peer-reviewed journal, Environmental Science & Technology Letters (ES&T Letters, 2016 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.estlett.6b00253).

TECHNOLOGY PROGRESSION

Innovator Energy has developed and demonstrated significant improvements to the technology. Major improvements from version 1.0 (version in ES&T paper) to version 8.0 (current version of the technology) include:

  • Lowered cost per ton CO₂ captured from ~$50 per ton to $5-8 per ton.
  • Reduced cycle time from 3 hours to 20 minutes – enabling the technology to be ⅕ the size for the same output.
  • Reduced temperature required, enabling the technology to be entirely powered by condenser water (condenser/cooling water waste heat temperature widely available at US power plants – 29-41.5°C). As a result, the technology does not have a parasitic load, modify or affect power plant steam cycle, and the power plant can operate unaffected during installation.
  • Elimination of corrosion and degradation.
  • Developed new thermally reversible stripping agents that are non-volatile.