Codexis says pilot shows enzyme-based carbon capture can work

In California, Codexis announced that a pilot-scale demonstration of the company’s carbon capture technology conducted at the National Carbon Capture Center (NCCC) in Wilsonville, Alabama, on flue gas emitted from a Southern Company power plant, shows that enzymes have promise to facilitate CO2 capture at coal-fired power plants. This is the largest scale that enzyme-based carbon capture technology has been demonstrated to date, with the equivalent daily capture rate of 1,800 average sized trees per day.

In May 2010, Codexis received $4.7 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) to develop an active enzyme called carbonic anhydrase (CA), which catalyzes the transfer of carbon dioxide in nature and is designed to remove dangerous emissions from coal-fired power plants.

In the project,  Codexis saw the largest improvement in an enzyme the company has ever seen: a 2-million-fold improvement in thermal stability at temperatures between 140 and 180 degrees Fahrenheit. In addition, preliminary analysis indicates the enzyme-based carbon capture technology can substantially reduce parasitic energy loss compared to the current state-of-the-art MEA technology.

A 2011 National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) report estimated that coal-fired power plants account for roughly 37 percent of total U.S. CO2 emissions and that current state-of-the-art MEA technology to capture CO2 could reduce power-generating capacity by 30 percent. Codexis’ enzyme-based technology, if successful, could play a role in meeting the proposed new EPA standards (Carbon Pollution Standard for New Power Plants), first published in April 2012 – theoretically capturing up to 90 percent of CO2 emissions of coal-fired power plants.

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