A carbon capture project developed at the University of Sherbrooke will be part of the technologies exploited by Deep Sky at its future CO capture and storage test site2which should see the light of day in the Montreal region in the coming months.
The Montreal company Deep Sky’s mission is to extract the main greenhouse gas, CO, from the atmosphere and oceans.2and sequester it in the ground.
It plans to create an “Alpha” site in Quebec to test different carbon elimination technologies with the aim of deploying them on a large scale.
Among the technologies that will be studied is an installation designed by the young company Skyrenu, which draws and captures CO2 directly from the atmosphere.
The installation developed by a team from the University of Sherbrooke resembles five shipping containers, stacked on top of each other, and each of these machines has a sequestration capacity of 1000 tonnes of CO2 per year.
“It’s a bit like a sponge through which large volumes of air are passed with fans and this sponge is specially functionalized to retain CO2 », imagined the professor at the faculty of mechanical engineering at the University of Sherbrooke Martin Brouillette.
“And when the sponge is saturated with CO2it is heated with steam to release the CO2 which can be recovered at high purity,” explained the professor.
The CO capture system2 from Skyrenu is a modular direct air capture device. It can therefore be deployed to capture CO2 virtually anywhere.
“We must deliver our machine by the end of the year, and according to our information, the Deep Sky site should be in Montreal East,” explained Martin Brouillette.
“Stable and secure” technology
Skyrenu has also developed technology that can transform CO2 made of magnesium carbonate, an inert rock, which can be buried or sequestered in the ground.
The development of CO capture and sequestration technologies2 on a large scale, however, poses certain risks, according to several organizations, including UNESCO.
In a recent report, it calls for a thorough assessment of the ethical, social and cultural implications of geoengineering, which includes carbon capture and sequestration.
In its report on the ethics of geoengineering, UNESCO highlights that capturing and storing carbon is extremely expensive and the organization warns of some potential consequences.
“The CO2 buried reservoirs would need to be stored permanently for hundreds of years – the consequences of rapid release from underground reservoirs would be severe,” the report reads.
But Professor Martin Brouillette assures that the technology developed by his team is safe.
“It’s very resistant to all possible weather conditions, rain and acid rain. You have to imagine that there is no CO2 which will free itself from these carbonates,” indicated Professor Brouillette.
“I want to inform the public that this is pretty much the safest, most sustainable, most secure method of sequestering CO2. »
An agreement that only concerns CO2 capture
Although Skyrenu has developed carbon sequestration technology, the agreement with Deep Sky only concerns CO capture facilities2.
“We sell them a capture machine and they are responsible for carrying out sequestration with the method they choose,” explained the professor of mechanical engineering.
Eventually, Skyrenu would like to use its technology for the carbonation of mining waste.
“Our systems can be installed directly at mining waste sites, eliminating the need to transport CO2 or mineral raw materials over long distances. We first plan to install our systems in abandoned asbestos mines in Quebec, where two gigatons of existing mine tailings offer CO sequestration potential.2 of around 700 megatons of CO2and where the process will be powered by the 100% renewable Hydro-Québec network,” we can read on the company’s website.
Around ten partnerships for Deep Sky
So far, Deep Sky has signed contracts with around ten companies around the world, including Skyrenu, and it plans to “aggregate all the technologies” to find those that can be used on a large scale.
In a press release, the CEO of Deep Sky, Damien Steel, said he was proud to collaborate with a Quebec company.
“A product of the University of Sherbrooke, Skyrenu illustrates the tremendous research and development efforts being carried out at universities to decarbonize our planet. We are excited to deploy their technology at our Alpha site, where we are testing the carbon removal units before deploying them at scale. »
These technologies, according to the CEO of Deep Sky, will be essential to “achieve carbon neutrality and mitigate the effects of climate change”.
According to Deep Sky, Quebec offers particularly attractive advantages for hosting carbon capture facilities, technologies that consume a lot of energy.
“Powered by renewable energy, Deep Sky’s facilities are strategically located in Quebec, a region that has significant hydroelectric reserves, immense wind potential and a vast territory whose geology is ideal for carbon capture,” can we read in the press release published Tuesday by the Montreal company.
A month ago, Deep Sky completed a round of financing and has $75 million to launch the first phase of its carbon capture and storage project.
A third of this money, or $25 million, comes from Investissement Québec and makes the government a preferred shareholder in the company.
Deep Sky aims to capture and store 2,000 tonnes of CO2 per year for phase I of its activities, but in the medium term, it hopes to deploy between 2025 and 2028, during phases II and III of the project, a series of commercial plants with a capture capacity of one million tonnes.