CAPTURA USES ELECTRODIALYSIS TO REMOVE CARBON DIOXIDE
An expansive aquatic facility is imagined to take over the ocean’s cleansing venture. The California Institute of Technology spin-off Captura plans to remove #carbonemissions from the #ocean by planting an aquatic facility in the heart of the sea and devising a mechanism where it purifies the water from carbon dioxide and spills it back into the ocean.
The design team states to only use #renewableelectricity and ocean water as inputs to minimize environmental impacts, and lets its readers in on its patented #electrodialysis process that can generate a stream of #pureCO2 that can then be sequestered or utilized to make other #lowcarbon products. The company’s mission lies in no purpose-built air contactors, no absorbents, and no by-products while enabling large-scale carbon removal at a lower cost.
PLANTING THE FIRST OCEAN-BASED PILOT FACILITY
In the summer of 2022, Captura installed its first ocean-based, stand-alone pilot facility in Newport Beach, California where the use of a continuous flow of ocean water allowed the research team to measure system performance and implement system improvements. The company plans to increase its capacity by a factor of 100, eyeing to install the system at an ocean location in 2023.
In fact, Captura announced its collaboration with AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles on May 4th, 2023. The latter is slated to house the former’s second direct Ocean Capture pilot system that can cleanse 100 tons of carbon dioxide from the ocean annually. ‘At AltaSea, our team will conduct a variety of #technology development and ocean modeling work to further validate, scale, and improve our technology,’ says Captura.
ACIDIC, DECARBONIZED OCEAN WATER FLOW
Captura offers a facility dubbed to slow down the negative impacts of #climatechange through its gigaton-scalable Direct Ocean Capture (DOC) technology developed at Caltech. Captura explains that its electrodialysis technology begins by pulling a stream of filtered ocean water into the facility.
‘Less than 1% of this water is diverted and pre-processed to purify the ocean water into pure salt water. This salt water is then processed in Captura’s proprietary electrodialysis technology. Through dissociation, electrodialysis uses renewable electricity to split the salt and water into an acid and an alkali base,’ states Captura.
After the process, the acid created is added to the ocean water through the plant, triggering a chemical process that draws the CO2 out. ‘We accelerate this process using a gas-liquid contactor and vacuum pump,’ says Captura. The carbon dioxide is then collected as a purified stream, suitable for sequestration or usage, and this results in an acidic, decarbonized ocean water flow in the system.
ALKALINE BASE NEUTRALIZES THE OCEAN WATER FLOW
The alkaline base is then added to neutralize the ocean water flow,…
