Octopus Challenge Combines Direct Air Seize With Water Restoration

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Direct air seize expertise is affected by an identification disaster. Drawing extra carbon from the air can merely allow fossil power stakeholders to make up the distinction, empowering them to dig up extra carbon from the bottom and spew it into the air. On the brilliant facet, although, direct air seize will be deployed to assist resolve different urgent points, and water useful resource conservation is certainly one of them

Direct Air Seize And The Capture6 Resolution

The water therapy angle first got here throughout the CleanTechnica radar final 12 months, when the US startup Capture6 reached out to share their newest information.

The corporate is planning to showcase its direct air seize expertise beneath the title Challenge Monarch (we’ll get to Challenge Octopus in a second), in an illustration venture with the Palmdale Water District in California.

Capture6’s expertise will probably be built-in into the PWD’s forthcoming Pure Water Antelope Valley water restoration plant, which is a narrative unto itself. The $15 million demonstration-scale plant is anticipated to interrupt floor across the center of 2024. It is going to be the precursor to a full scale, excessive tech wastewater restoration and public schooling venture with an estimated price ticket of $75 million to $100 million.

“When the full-scale facility is operational 2027, it should present a further 5,325 acre-feet of water per 12 months through the use of recycled water and treating it for groundwater augmentation,” PWB explains. “The therapy would take away 99.99% of micro organism, viruses and ions (like salt).

Salt is the place Capture6 is available in. The corporate’s direct air seize expertise is deploys salt to seize carbon and squeeze extra usable water from therapy vegetation, which in any other case could be disposed of within the type of a salty waste brine.

In a press launch final June, Capture6 cited a spokesperson for PWD who anticipates that its direct air seize system will remove brine discharges from the plant, whereas saving 30-40% on water therapy prices.

The State Of The Expertise

There’s not a lot of a thriller behind typical direct air seize programs. As defined by the US Division of Vitality, there are two fundamental sorts, and they’re each costly.

“The draw back to direct air seize is its present price. Eradicating CO2 from the air takes numerous energy as a result of solely a tiny proportion of the environment is made up of CO2. The expertise additionally entails prices to retailer or use the captured CO2,” the Vitality Division explains.

The extra acquainted form of direct air seize system sucks air by means of a course of that entails chemical solvents, warmth, and a vacuum, after which the carbon-reduced air is launched again to, effectively, the air. The chemical substances are recycled again into the method, however the warmth and vacuum phases require power, the place the prices kick in.

The choice is a sorbent-based system, which deploys filters that chemically bind with carbon dioxide. That’s concerning the extent of the distinction between the 2 programs, as a result of sorbent programs additionally require warmth and vacuum remedies. “When the filters are heated and/or positioned beneath a vacuum, they launch the CO2, which is now in a concentrated stream,” the Vitality Division explains.

The Capture6 Distinction

Capture6 offers a money-saving workaround by linking its expertise with water therapy programs. They kindly emailed some further technical particulars to CleanTechnica that make clear the distinction.

“The method entails splitting salt in brine waste by means of electrochemical processes, producing a base and an acid,” they clarify. “The bottom absorbs CO2 from the air, forming carbonates for long-term storage.”

That’s not fairly the identical factor as carbonite, however the fundamental concept is identical. Carbonates are the primary ingredient in strong supplies like seashells and limestone. As soon as locked right into a carbonate, the airborne carbon will be put to make use of as a substitute of being shunted underground.

Among the many money-saving options famous by Capture6, the method conserves water sources by producing contemporary water from wastewater. Along with a possible income stream from that supply, the system additionally harvests priceless chemical substances together with lithium, hydrogen, and hydrochloric acid, which is the stuff in your abdomen that dissolves meals.

The system additionally operates at energy-efficient, ambient temperatures, offering extra alternatives to make use of renewable power as an influence supply.

“The expertise is flexible, permitting numerous enter and output configurations, and it integrates synergistically with a number of industries,” Capture6 provides.

Leaping Direct Air Seize Up To Scale

Capture6’s describes its direct air seize system as cutting-edge, however the firm additionally emphasizes that the system consists of components with a firmly grounded historical past in related applied sciences and a provide chain, besides. In different phrases, the system is ripe for scale-up.

“For instance, the water therapy step makes use of reverse osmosis; nanofiltration is routinely used within the desalination business; the electrochemical splitting makes use of decade-old electrolysis expertise or electrodialysis which is lately gaining traction; the air contactors are an extension of cooling towers used extensively in energy technology and different industrial amenities,” Capture6 explains.

Capture6 is including some additional tweaks to these air contactors, with a leg up from the 2 Vitality Division places of work which can be offering a money grant and technical assist by means of the company’s Direct Air Seize Pre-Industrial Expertise Prize. The corporate expects to scale back whole power demand by as much as 15% on account of the help.

The Octopus Challenge And The Vitality-Water-Air Nexus

Even earlier than the Antelope Valley venture will get off the bottom, Capture6 has already launched into its subsequent demonstration venture. Referred to as Challenge Octopus, the system will probably be put in as a part of a brand new water therapy facility in Korea billed as “the world’s first totally built-in water administration and carbon dioxide (CO₂) elimination facility utilizing a seawater desalination plant.”

The Challenge Octopus direct air seize system will probably be scaled up in two phases. As soon as totally constructed out, Capture6 expects it to take away as much as 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide yearly.

The venture pairs Capture6 with the Korean state-owned water utility Okay-water and the water therapy specialist BKT. The general objective of the brand new therapy system is to ship usable water to the Daesan Industrial Complicated, the place about 40% of South Korea’s petrochemical manufacturing is situated, with out additional stressing the area’s already drought-stressed freshwater sources.

“The area has been affected by water shortage as a result of extreme droughts and reliance on exterior water sources,” Capture6 notes.

“By partnering with water therapy amenities just like the one Okay-water is constructing, Capture6’s expertise can present inexpensive carbon elimination whereas growing the power’s freshwater yields,” Capture6 notes. The expertise may even assist scale back the environmental impacts of disposing desalination brine into the ocean.

The petrochemical business angle takes among the inexperienced sizzle off the sustainability shine, however as Capture6 factors out, its direct air seize system offers another provide chain for a few of these petrochemicals

“The corporate’s course of may even generate inexperienced chemical substances to additional decarbonize Okay-water’s water administration operations and heavy industries equivalent to steelmaking,” Capture6 provides.

If all goes in accordance with plan, Challenge Octopus is not going to be the one certainly one of its variety for lengthy. Okay-water chairs the Asia Water Council, described as “the consultant world water platform for addressing Asia’s water points and enhancing water welfare of the area,” with 152 organizations from 24 nations as members.

Picture: Rendering of the deliberate Okay-water therapy plant in Korea that includes a brand new direct air seize system from the US startup Capture6 (courtesy of Capture6).