In recent years, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has funded a series of awards to support carbon capture and removal, underscoring the government’s commitment to address climate-change risks posed by greenhouse-gas emissions. These awards, totaling millions of dollars, have been granted to a select group of innovative projects, including two led by CORMETECH, that seek to develop innovative solutions that can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of industries and power plants across the U.S. and beyond.
One of the CORMETECH projects selected to receive $3.125 million in funding support involves The Company’s aspiration to develop and optimize a lower-cost technology for capturing CO2 from the flue gas of Natural Gas Combined Cycle Plants. This type of capture at the emissions source is referred to as Point Source Capture (PSC) because it involves filtering out CO2 and other harmful gases from industrial facilities and power plants before they enter the atmosphere.
CORMETECH’s partners in the ongoing PSC initiative include Southern Company, Middle River Power, Global Thermostat, and Zero Carbon Partners. This research collaboration includes the planned deployment of a pilot PSC unit in early 2024 at the U.S. National Carbon Capture Center, a stepping stone to enhancing the scalability of carbon capture in large NGCC plants.
“CORMETECH’s decades of experience as an emissions-control market leader in the U.S. power-plant sector gives us deep insight into operating in this environment and the considerations needed to elevate CO2 -emissions management to the same level we’ve already established controlling NOx (nitrogen oxides), another greenhouse gas that’s the main driver of dangerous-to-breathe smog,” said Mike Mattes, The Company’s President and CEO. He added that CORMETECH SCR-system catalysts reduce NOx emissions by as much as 95 percent. “While CO2 represents a much bigger emissions challenge, capturing it is a natural adjacency for our technology, and the early outputs of our DOE-Award research give us confidence we’re on the right track.”
The second CORMETECH Project, which received a $2 million+ award from the DOE, centers on Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology advancement. CORMETECH and partners Global Thermostat and the Georgia Institute of Technology are working to advance DAC adsorber efficiency and effectiveness. Adsorbers function as the engine of DAC systems, selectively filtering CO2 directly from the air. CORMETECH’s research focuses on increasing the amount of CO2 captured from the atmosphere while reducing the energy required to operate a DAC system. U.S. Government officials, including Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm, have emphasized technology-performance gains are critical to driving down the costs of DAC to support the scale needed to help achieve 2050 Net-Zero Goals.
These two DOE awards represent significant steps toward decarbonizing industrial and power sectors and reducing CO2 emissions through innovative technologies. CORMETECH’s leadership role in in both projects underscores its pivotal role in advancing carbon removal and supporting cleaner, more sustainable energy generation.
