Carbon Capture Battery
Remedium is developing a ground-breaking battery that operates by capturing carbon dioxide from air or high emitting industries to store electricity.
Problem we are solving
The paramount impediment in large-scale implementation of carbon capture technologies is the added cost. Currently, capturing CO2 does not have any economic benefit making it unfavourable for businesses to deploy. Conventionally, capturing each tonne of CO2 costs between $50-$100. Without any governmental inference, i.e. introducing carbon tax or carbon credit, businesses will have no financial incentive to utilise carbon capture to curb their CO2 emission.
To tackle this problem, we at Remedium have developed a new carbon capture technology, carbon capture battery. Carbon capture battery operates by capturing CO2 from high emitting industries and monetizes the variation in cost of electricity to drive down the cost of CO2 capture.
How carbon capture battery works
To store electricity, it must be converted to a storable form, typically gravitational, chemical, thermal, or mechanical energy with a process that can be reversed. In carbon capture battery, electricity is converted to chemical energy via a thermochemical reaction. Available electricity is used to power an electrical heater or a heat pump converting electricity to heat. Next, heat is converted into chemical energy by initiating an endothermic reaction. This endothermic reaction also releases a stream of pure CO2 that is transported to storage/utilization sites.
Through an exothermic reaction, chemical energy is converted back to heat while CO2 is being captured from high emitting sources. The produced heat is converted back to electricity using the most common method of producing electricity, i.e. a heat engine. It is notable that the equipment used to convert and regenerate electricity in this scheme is an already mature and established technology, enabling rapid development of this technology.
Why carbon capture battery can be a breakthrough climate change mitigation solution
A techno-economic model of the carbon capture battery has been developed to quantify the potential of this technology. The results show that the carbon capture battery can reduce the cost of CO2 capture to negative values. In other words, this technology makes the process of capturing CO2 profitable.
The common approach to make CCUS profitable is to find profitable utilisation schemes; however, we at Remedium are the first company that has attempted to make the process of capturing CO2 profitable noting that utilisation schemes can still be used in conjunction with the carbon capture battery making it even more profitable. Our results show that businesses can profit between $10-$50 for capturing 1 tonne of CO2.
The other important aspect of this technology is its capability to store electricity at grid-scale which provides storage capability to the grid enabling wider renewable energy implementation. Results show that carbon capture battery achieves a very high capacity, in the range of 250-350 kWh/m3, second only to hydrogen (600 kWh/m3) with round-trip efficiency (40-55%) noticeably higher than that of the hydrogen (25-40%).
Round-trip efficiency describes the proportion of electricity put into the storage system during charging returned to the user during discharge. Capacity specifies the size of the storage system and is generally proportional to the capital cost. Technoeconomic results show that the proposed scheme levelized cost of storage (LCOS) is in the range of 0.25-0.3 $/kWh. This is competitive with other grid scale electricity storage systems such as hydrogen despite expenses solely pertaining to carbon capture e.g. CO2 transportation cost.
This technology is also much safer. Storing large quantities of a flammable gas, such as hydrogen, at very high pressure is a safety concern. Conversely, carbon capture battery only involves absorbing and releasing CO2 from the flue gases.