The
Skyonic
SkyMine™ process mineraizes CO2 as sodium carbonate (baking soda) for
long-term storage as land or mine fill. It is a post-combustion carbon
capture and sequestration technology that works with any large-scale
stationary CO2 emitter (e.g.- fossil fueled power plants). The process
removes heavy metals and acid gasses as well as carbon dioxide from
conditioned at-temperature flue gas.
Sodium hydroxide, which is produced on site as a part of the
SkyMine™ process is used to react with the CO2 to produce the sodium
carbonate. The heat to drive the process is captured from the heat in
the flue gas. The reaction to produce sodium hydroxide also produces
hydrogen and chlorine as byproducts. These chemicals are also "green";
they are produced at low energy and without emitting CO2.
From a CNET report:
(According
to Joe Jones, inventor and founder of the company), because the system
captures metals and acid gases, it can replace the $400 million
scrubbers that power plants currently have to install. Skyonic's system
will probably cost about the same amount as a scrubber. Although the
capital budget will be equal, power plant owners will get a salable
byproduct and avoid carbon taxes, which may be imposed in the future.
A 500-megawatt power plant will produce approximately 338,000 tons
of carbon dioxide a year. Multiply that weight by 1.9 and you get the
number of tons of baking soda that the plant will produce.
Skyonic
claims that since the technology can be retrofitted to existing
facilities or designed into new ones, it addresses both the current
problem of climate change, and the future demand for cleaner energy to
support development.
They also claim that a SkyMine™ plant can be operated at a profit,
because the hydrogen produced (as well as the chlorine and
bicarbonates) have commercial value.
SkyMine™ began as an idea scribbled on a cocktail napkin and
experiments conducted in the garage. The inventor of the SkyMine™
process, Joe Jones, founded Skyonic in 2005. Skyonic also filed a
technology-defining method patent on the SkyMine™ process in 2005.
Skyonic performed research and laboratory-scale testing on the process
at Southwest Research Institute in 2005 and 2006, and began field
testing the process at a coal-burning power plant in Texas later that
year. Currently, Skyonic is performing pilot-scale demonstration plant
work at Luminant Energy's Big Brown Steam Electric Station in
Fairfield, Texas, in real-world conditions.
In the second quarter of 2005 the company raised $1.25M from about 10 investors in a Series A preferred stock offering.
In 2006 the company concluded a Series B preferred stock
offering, raising $3M from 5 investors. One of those investors was TXU
Corp (now Energy Future Holdings Corp,
a private company). The agreement with and investment in Skyonic helped
fund an extensive field-test of the technology at Luminant Energy (the
generating division of Energy Future Holdings) Big Brown Steam Electric
Station to further develop and evaluate Skyonic's SkyMine™ process.
The
Skyonic
SkyMine™ process mineraizes CO2 as sodium carbonate (baking soda) for
long-term storage as land or mine fill. It is a post-combustion carbon
capture and sequestration technology that works with any large-scale
stationary CO2 emitter (e.g.- fossil fueled power plants). The process
removes heavy metals and acid gasses as well as carbon dioxide from
conditioned at-temperature flue gas.