Skyonic Corporation, an Austin, Texas-based company with a unique, patent-pending carbon-capture technology, has received $3 million in funding from the Department of Energy.
The company says it can turn carbon emissions from a smokestack into baking soda.
The DOE grant will go towards the development of the company’s Capitol-SkyMine project, which is targeted to capture 75,000 metric-tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from flue gas
emitted by Capitol Aggregates’ cement plant in San Antonio. CO2 emissions will be mineralized to form
baking soda, while also offsetting an additional 200,000 metric-tons of CO2 in the manufacture
of chemical byproducts.
Skyonic said the project will operate at a profit, due to the
sale of these byproducts and is expected to generate over two hundred permanent jobs in Texas.
The mineralized carbon dioxide (baking soda) will be used in several industrial applications and
tested as feed-stock for bio-algae fuels.
Capitol-SkyMine® will also neutralize acid-rain
emissions, and reduce mercury and heavy metals emissions, the company said.
The grant administered by the Department of Energy
and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE/NETL), along with private investment, will fund Phase 1 of the project.
Phase 1 will fund modeling, simulation, design, costing, and procurement activities in
preparation for the construction of the plant in 2010.
In mid-2010, Skyonic will have the
opportunity to apply for a Phase 2 grant from DOE/NETL to support the construction of the
plant, with the balance of the plant funded by private investors.
Skyonic Corporation was founded and incorporated in 2005 by SkyMine inventor and chemical
engineer, Joe D. Jones. Skyonic has performed field trials and
demonstration projects at coal-generation facilities throughout Texas. Since its inception, Skyonic
has been supported largely by the Silicon Valley real estate, high-tech, and environmental
entrepreneur, Carl Berg.
Loading...