Competitive Edge: Carbon BioCapture’s microalgal tech fights the good fight

Q: What was the reason for founding your organization – what was the open niche you saw that could be addressed with a new product or service? What was the problem, or gap, or opportunity?

The fundamental difference between point-source capture and direct air capture is the dilution state of the CO2. Imagine a river dumping polluted water (or plastic) into the ocean. Shouldn’t cleaning up the river be more cost-effective and expedient than cleaning the ocean?

Photosynthetic microalgae have been metabolizing CO2 for billions of years in the oceans and lakes of planet Earth and are suitable to tackle planetary-scale CO2 emissions. The resulting biomass has a multitude of uses ranging from (renewable) fuel to fertilizer to feed.

The burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat is the largest single source of global greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions: 25% while the global cement industry accounts for around 4.5%.

Q: Tell us about your organization. What do you do?

CBC is a Miami-based, minority woman-owned company created to deploy its proven and patented “all-terrain” microalgal “greenware” technology in which naturally occurring photosynthetic microorganisms are adapted to capture and metabolize CO2 from industrial emissions (or air) into biomass and oxygen.

Q: What stage of development are you?

Demonstration stage – proven at small, integrated scale, but not yet commercially available

Q: What do your technologies, products or services do and accomplish – how does it (they) work, who is it (they) aimed for?

Carbon BioCapture LLC (“CBC”) patented and scalable microalgal point-source capture technology is unique in that industrial gases require no treatment: “raw” flue gas is diverted from the client’s stack to CBC’s PhotoBioReactor (“PBR”) array or “carbon [capture] farm”.

Large-scale “carbon farms” can remove from thousands to millions of tons of CO2 fossil fuel combustion gases but also NOx, SOx, and heavy metals.

The carbon Capture as a Service (“CCaaS”) business model requires no investment from the emitter.

Effectively, CBC provides “carbon insurance” to protect its clients against future regulatory changes imposing a carbon tax of uncertain and growing magnitude on future CO2 emissions.

Q: Competitively, what gives your technology, product or service set an edge in cost or performance, sustainability, or any other aspect, that makes it stand out from the crowd, In short, what makes it transformative?

CBC does not use genetically modified strains of microalgae. Yields can reach 18g/L utilizing untreated flue gases and fresh or seawater.

The PBR is essentially a batch reactor, and its proprietary design includes thin vertical acrylic panels that maximize the sun’s radiation per volume of biomass culture medium, and it’s guaranteed to last for up to 20 years.

The energy requirements are relatively low compared to other microalgae systems needing more power to circulate the growth medium itself through tubular reactors or racetrack ponds. The 6-8 psi (.5 Bar) needed to drive the PBR (i.e., for the gases to overcome the 2m water column pressure) does not require compressors and can be reached with centrifugal blowers.

Q: What are the top milestones you have accomplished in the past 3 years?

1. 1. Successfully operated a microalgal point-source carbon capture pilot plant at Argos’ cement plant in Cartagena, Colombia.
2. 2. Running 24/7 with only ambient light and connected directly to the kiln’s smokestack: the flue gases need no treatment and are fed directly to the photobioreactors (“PBR”).
3. 3. Resulting in the highest biomass production yields available anywhere.

Q: What are the top milestones you will accomplish in the next 3 years?

Build and operate a fully automated commercial scale “carbon [capture] farm”, i.e. a one-hectare scale array of 12,500 PBR to capture 20,000 to 40,000 metric tons of CO2 per year, connected directly to the stack of a coal-fired power plant.

Q. Where can I learn more about Carbon BioCapture LLC?

Click here to visit Carbon BioCapture LLC’s website.