Workshop on BioCCS highlighted new methods of carbon dioxide capture

The “Decarbonization 2024: Advanced Materials and Technologies for a Sustainable Future” workshop was organised by Stockholm Material Hub at the end of March, which is run jointly by KTH, Stockholm University and Karolinska Institutet, in collaboration with KTH Energy Platform. The aim of the event was to promote the development of new methods, technologies and business models for carbon capture and sequestration.

Stockholm as future hub

Around 80 researchers and experts from academia, industry and state authorities gathered to discuss challenges associated with increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The hope is that the meeting can pave the way to a future centre for carbon dioxide separation.

“Stockholm is absolutely the right place to take this discussion a step further. Today, representatives from six Swedish colleges, universities and research institutes are gathering together with international representatives from France, Germany, Norway and elsewhere. This is an ideal space for developing new techniques and methods together,” says Jiayin Yuan, Professor in Material Chemistry at Stockholm University and Director of Stockholm Material Hub.

Yuan welcomed participants together with Tor Regberg, Group Manager, Innovation Office at Stockholm University.

One of the participants who had travelled the furthest to attend the workshop was Elise Lorenceau from French research organisation Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).

“The task of capturing carbon dioxide is very complex and requires us to adopt a multidisciplinary approach. This is why this type of workshop, which brings together researchers from different fields with representatives from companies and the public sector, is so important,” says Lorenceau, Senior Researcher at CNRS.

“In my presentation, I wanted to show that there is a lot to gain even from solutions that are not particularly technically advanced. When it comes to carbon capture, it’s especially important that we find economical solutions because nobody is willing to pay to develop them today,” Lorenceau adds.

Stockholm Exergi’s pioneering plant

The workshop began with a presentation by Erik Dahlén, who is responsible for process engineering research and development at Stockholm Exergi. He shared lessons learned and experiences from the construction of a pioneering bio-CCS plant, also known as Bio Energy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS).

In 2019, the company established a research facility as a step in the development of a full-scale BECCS facility to be operational by 2026-2027. Stockholm Exergi estimates that the plant will capture 800,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, almost equivalent to the carbon dioxide emissions from vehicle traffic in Stockholm.

He stressed the importance of using mature technologies that have already been tested in reference facilities, and of having a holistic approach. This has meant that the company has also considered the working environment and environmental impact as well as more technology-related considerations.

Dahlén underlined that each facility is unique and needs its own specific considerations at all decision-making stages.

This was followed by a joint presentation given by Christophe Duwig, Professor of Process Engineering and Deputy Director of KTH Energy Platform, and Lorenceau.

Duwig provided an insightful overview of the demands the world faces to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global average temperature rises to no more than 1.5°C. To do this, around half of today’s carbon dioxide emissions must be captured after the year 2050.

He pointed out that the cost of capturing carbon dioxide from the air is at least five times greater than from cement and paper pulp production, for example. Sectors in which Sweden is well-placed to develop successful solutions. He also showed how research had so far focused only on specific parts of the process and that more knowledge is needed to develop energy-efficient solutions.

Lorenceau spoke about a project supported by CNRS in which a foam is used as a form of membrane to separate carbon dioxide from gas. One of the goals of the technology is to benefit from technical solutions that are as simple as possible.

The research is planned to continue within the framework of Horizon Europe in a project in which CNRS, KTH, Stockholm University and the company Capsol Technologies may be involved.

The next person to present was Mattias Karls, CEO of Direct Carbon, who presented the company’s solution for capturing carbon dioxide from the air and pumping it into greenhouses. Fossil-based carbon dioxide is currently used to increase yields in greenhouse cultivation. The company’s technology could replace this with local carbon capture.

Synthetic biology offers a way forward

The last speaker before the day’s lunch break was Lars Friberg, Climate and Energy Strategist at Vinnova. He spoke about the need for innovations in the field of carbon capture along with a major scale-up of techniques and methods.

Friberg highlighted a number of areas such as “synthetic biology” as a way forward to create new forms of technology that, together with the use of AI, could increase the ability to capture carbon dioxide. Vinnova recently made a call for proposals with the aim of funding innovations in AI, immersive technologies, quantum technology and synthetic biology.

Organisations working to improve opportunities in this area include Engineering Biology Research Consortium, (EBRC) in the US, and the Global Biofoundry Alliance.

Niklas Hedin, Professor of Material Chemistry at Stockholm University, then presented research into new carbon capture methods with help of porous, aminated and colloidal liquids. These could offer alternatives to today’s methods, which are environmentally unfriendly and require large amounts of energy to separate carbon dioxide from the solution.

This was followed by Marius Hingel, PhD student at Stockholm University, who gave an overview of research aimed at using captured carbon dioxide to produce bio-based polymers.

The production of bio-based polymers is currently very limited, partly due to the large amounts of energy needed, and therefore more research is needed to develop new methods. Hingel focused on German company Covestro, which manufactures a carbon dioxide-based bioplastic product, which is used for applications such as a foam material in mattresses and upholstered furniture. He also mentioned German and Spanish companies with similar products.

Hingel asserted that the development of bio-based polymers must go hand-in-hand with the development of climate-friendly energy sources.

An open discussion then took place among participants, with networking opportunities, for around 90 minutes. Discussions were based on a number of common issues, including opportunities to combine more projects from different sectors, finding new collaboration partners, increasing the transfer of knowledge between academia and industry and increasing training efforts in the area of carbon dioxide capture.

New combustion technology 

The discussion session was followed by Anders Lyngfelt, Professor of Energy Technology at Chalmers, who shared an update on progress in chemical looping combustion. This is a process in which a metallic oxygen carrier is used to bring oxygen to the fuel, thereby achieving a high degree of efficiency and favourable conditions for carbon dioxide separation. The technology is under development with the ultimate aim of using it in power plants and various industrial processes.

Lyngfelt also talked about an idea to introduce a deposit scheme on carbon dioxide emissions to meet upcoming negative emissions targets. You can read more about this in a recently published article in Swedish daily SvD (in Swedish). 

Norwegian company Capsol Technologies has developed a carbon capture technique based on hot potassium carbonate (HPC). Anders Grinrød is Research Director at Capsol Technologies and gave an overview of the company’s various products, one of which is licensed for use in Stockholm Exergi’s planned facility.

He shared the operating principles of the company’s products and underscored how they are used advantageously in waste-to-energy plants, power plants and industrial plants such as cement manufacturing.

Last up was Anders Lundblad, Research Director at RISE, who provided details about ongoing developments and testing of materials for hydrogen fuel cells.

“Both during and after today’s workshop, participants had lively discussions and were able to make new contacts for future projects and collaborations. We now have the opportunity to make Stockholm a leading destination for BioCCS,” says Christophe Duwig, Professor at the division of Process Technology and Deputy Director of KTH Energy Platform.

Text: Magnus Trogen Pahlén
Photo: Mirva Eriksson and Christophe Duwig