CO2 Value Europe is a proud member of the VIVALDI consortium by leading its communication and dissemination activities and contributing to the development of solutions to capture and convert the carbon dioxide emissions of bio-based industries into greener chemicals.
Last summer, researchers from the Biochemical Process Engineering at the Luleå University of Technology (LTU) started the sampling activities, the collection of on-site off-gas streams from the VIVALDI partner SunPine, a biorefinery in northern Sweden. From the roof of SunPine’s industrial plant, flue gas was collected from the chimney pipe with the help of hoses. The collected flue gas, which consists of carbon dioxide and other substances, was packed under high pressure in large gas bottles thanks to the expertise of Krajete GmbH.
The gas bottles with compressed gas were then transported to the lab at LTU. There, the LTU research team has since worked to produce a clean carbon dioxide gas, which will be sent to the project partners for further processing into chemicals.
The concept’s innovation is that the enzyme acts as a biocatalyst and accelerates the conversion of carbon dioxide to bicarbonate (a water-soluble form of carbon dioxide) so that the absorption step goes very fast. An important advantage of having carbon dioxide in the form of water-soluble bicarbonate is that less energy is required for the subsequent desorption step. This makes the concept much less energy intensive.
Please find the full Press Release here and watch the research team in action here.
