CarbonBlue is developing a method to remove carbon dioxide from both ocean and fresh waters and capture it for long-term storage, in turn enabling a similar amount of carbon dioxide to be reabsorbed and captured again in an ongoing process.
CarbonBlue’s process utilizes calcium, one of the most abundant chemical elements on the planet, to mineralize, separate, and remove dissolved CO₂ from water in a closed-loop system. This water can then be safely utilized, or returned to its source, while continuing to perform the crucial function of absorbing more atmospheric CO₂ in both cases. The calcium then gets recycled to remove additional CO₂.
CarbonBlue’s chemical process works in both ocean and fresh waters, thereby allowing for inland bodies of water to absorb carbon dioxide. Additionally, the process doesn’t rely on membranes for filtration, which reduces costs, energy requirements, and potential adverse environmental effects. And because the process can utilize available heat (both from other industrial process and renewable heat), it has the ability to decrease energy consumption needs.
Different methods of monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) are likely needed for carbon dioxide removal from the ocean vs fresh waters. This will also include the monitoring of environmental impacts in these locations. As the CarbonBlue reactors are integrated with different systems, such as desalination plants, or developed into standalone systems and the CO₂ removal capacity is scaled up, additional engineering may be required.
Doctoral Researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Associate Professor and Georgia Power Chair in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology
James Gately is pursuing a Ph.D. in biological oceanography at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He holds a B.S. in marine biology from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. James’ research interests center on how marine ecosystems are impacted by anthropogenically driven changes in ocean chemistry. He is currently investigating how ecologically and biogeochemically important groups of marine phytoplankton respond to seawater alkalinization. Prior to his academic career, James served seven years in the U.S. Navy as an information technology specialist.
Dr. Chris Reinhard is Associate Professor and Georgia Power Chair in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Reinhard is trained as a biogeochemist and Earth system scientist, with a background in Earth system evolution, ocean biogeochemistry, and Earth system modeling. Reinhard’s current research focuses on providing a sound mechanistic and empirical basis for scaling up deployment of targeted CDR approaches, while in parallel evaluating the costs, benefits, and ecological consequences of CDR approaches that are at the “concept” stage. This includes a particular focus on navigating the deployment of enhanced rock weathering in agricultural systems at scale, pursuing the development of flexible, modular reactor-based approaches toward engineered alkalinity production, and evaluating the CDR potential and ecological consequences of ocean alkalinity enhancement. More generally, Reinhard is interested in the biogeochemistry of the Earth system, and the ways in which human influence intersects with the large-scale cycling of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and oxygen.