Using mineral carbonation as an effective avenue for CO2 to products
Industrial carbon emissions can be captured and turned into useful materials on a vast scale – this is the central theme of Mineral Carbonation International.
The Australian firm uses a process already used by nature – mineral carbonation that you already see in the weathering of rocks. CO2 in the air mixes with rain water, forms a weak carbonic acid, and once in the rock, starts weathering it while at the same time reacting with the weathered parts to form carbonates. These processes take thousands of years in nature.
What companies such as MCI are trying to do is to make this mineral carbonation happen in just a few hours through the use of select chemicals. Instead of rock, MCI uses waste such as steel slag, mine tailings and incinerator ash and quarried minerals such as serpentinites to convert the CO2 into carbonates. They then use these carbonates to make a variety of products, effectively sequestering CO2 for at least a while, and hopefully for a long while.
Dezeen – Marcus Fairs
MCi Carbon – Sophia Hamblin Wang
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