Mantra Venture Group and KC Cottrell Sign LOI for CO2 Electroreduction Reactor; CO2 to Products
29 September 2009
Mantra Venture Group Ltd. signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with KC Cottrell Co., Ltd. (KC Cottrell), a global leader in air pollution control based out of Seoul, Korea. Under the terms of the LOI, Mantra and KC Cottrell will enter into a strategic alliance to engineer, build, test, and deploy a 100 kg-per day Electroreduction of Carbon Dioxide (ERC) reactor.
KC Cottrell is currently in the construction phase of a pilot project that captures and purifies 1/2 tonne of CO2 per day from an industrial power plant. With completion scheduled for December 2009, the company is now looking for an end-use for the concentrated CO2. ERC, Mantra’s CO2 recycling technology, converts concentrated CO2 into useful products such as formic acid. Formic acid is used in numerous industry applications worldwide and has a current market value of $1,400/tonne.
In November 2007, Mantra acquired 100% outright ownership of the Electroreduction of Carbon Dioxide (ERC) technology, developed by the University of British Columbia’s Clean Energy Research Center. Powered by electricity, ERC combines captured carbon dioxide with water to produce high value materials that are conventionally obtained from the thermochemical processing of fossil fuels, including: formic acid, formate salts, oxalic acid, and methanol.
While thermochemical reactions must be driven at relatively high temperatures that are normally obtained by burning fossil fuels, ERC operates at near ambient conditions and is driven by electric energy that could be taken from an electric power grid supplied by hydro, wind, solar or nuclear energy.
The Electroreduction of Carbon Dioxide (ERC) technology sounds promising, but without reporting costs there is no way to tell if it is economic.
Posted by: kelly | 29 September 2009 at 04:33 AM
It is not economic without the use of cheap, mass produced nuclear reactors.
But speculators, using the vast oil and other profits now can make the price of petroleum products high enough, so that it is cheaper to make methanol from nuclear or coal fired electricity and CO2 than it is to make gasoline from crude oil on an equal mile per mile basis not gallon for gallon. It is much cheaper just to use the electricity directly in a car.
Every car can be converted cheaply to partial electric operation. Replace the present batteries with higher capacity deep cycle batteries and program the computer to run the alternator only when the brakes are applied or if the battery will get too low to start the car. A built in charger will recharge the battery when it is parked at home or at work.
The power supply of almost every common computor can be modified to charge a car battery.
Eventually the fan, water-pump, power-steering, brakes and airconditioner can be powered from the battery. A small low powered electric motor can also allow the car to move forward slowly in traffic without the engine running. Such a motor should be a legal requirement for all cars.
Methanol can be made from coal or natural gas directly and every coal mine should be equipped with a unit that does it with cheap waste coal or biomass. Methanol is easily converted to gasoline for cars that do not have a methanol compatible fuel system. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 30 September 2009 at 10:40 AM