The AP (10/8) reports, “Cemex Inc. said Wednesday it has been selected by the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop technology to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions at one of its U.S. cement plants.” According to Cemex, the company “will work with RTI International and others to design a dry sorbent CO2 capture and compression system; a pipeline, if necessary; and an injection station.” Cemex said that “the so-called carbon capture and sequestration technology may remove up to a million tons of CO2 annually. A company spokeswoman said Cemex has not yet chosen the plant where the technology will be used.”
The Houston Business Journal (10/8) reports that the DOE “will provide $1.14 million to the project, while Cemex will fund 20 percent of the first phase.” Gilberto Perez, president of Cemex, stated that “through this project, Cemex is pioneering a new frontier, working to develop cutting-edge technology that could offer a CO2 reduction option for not only Cemex plants, but for the U.S. cement industry. … This project could also lead to the creation of green jobs in America.”
Locally, Bridge Gap Engineering has been introduced to a novel thermal swing chemisorption (TSC) process by researchers at Lehigh University. The advantage of Lehigh’s chemisorbent is the removal and recovery of CO2 from a flue gas at 200 degrees Celcius without precooling, predrying or precompression. The Lehigh researchers have demonstrated high CO2 recovery and remarkably increased CO2 product pressure without external compression which has the potential to offer significant economic advantages in sequestration applications for the recovered CO2.
All I can say is hats off to Cemex. I’m pretty sure they are not flush with cash right now, but this shows that they are still looking forward.