The plant seen here will capture 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year – 100 times more than the UK’s current largest facility and equivalent to taking 20,000 cars off the roads. The £20 million investment has been completed by Northwich-based Tata Chemicals Europe, one of Europe’s leading producers of sodium carbonate, salt and sodium bicarbonate.
The project will help to unlock the future of carbon capture and utilisation, as it proves the viability of the technology at a large scale, removing CO2 from gas power plant emissions for use in high-end manufacturing applications.
In a world-first, the captured emissions are being purified to food and pharmaceutical grade, then used as raw material for a form of sodium bicarbonate that will be known as Ecokarb. This unique and innovative manufacturing process is patented in the UK, with further patents pending in key territories around the world. Ecokarb will be exported to more than 60 countries.
While this technology is impressive, the statement of “equivalent to taking 20,000 cars off the roads” is misleading.
This technology is described here as partially capturing some of the CO2 present within the “gas power plant emissions”.
This technology is, therefore, limiting yet an ADDITIONAL pollution by a “Gas Power plant”. It is NOT reducing the pollution continuously produced by the combustion engine vehicles.