Turning Carbon Emissions into Bricks

The University of Newcastle has announced a new pilot plant that will transform captured CO₂ emissions into green building materials. Professors Bogdan Dlugogorski, Eric Kennedy, and Dr. Geoff Brent have produced small scale laboratory demonstrations of the process.

Similar to Earth’s natural carbon sink mechanism, this process combines CO₂ with serpentine magnesium silicate rock and heat to produce water, magnesium carbonate, and silica sand. Essentially, the CO₂ becomes a rock. Professor Kennedy states “[This] natural mineral carbonation system is very slow, … our challenge is to speed up that process to prevent CO₂ emissions accumulating in the air in a cost-effective way.”

This solid product could have various uses, but the primary focus seems to be green buildings. "The key difference between geosequestration and ocean storage and our mineral carbonation model is we permanently transform CO₂ into a usable product, not simply store it underground" said Professor Dlugogorski.

The announcement says that the plant will be operational by 2017 and will be located at the Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources (NIER). Australia, New South Wales, and Orica have covered the funding for this research center at the tune of $9 million.

The facility will be managed by a partnership of Newcastle Innovation, GreenMag Group, and Orica, called Mineral Carbonation International. The team hopes this large scale facility will demonstrate both the improved emissions capture and cost savings compared to competing CO₂ storage methods.

The announcement came about a month before the University of Hawaii and the IPCC predicted disaster for our global warming planet. Given these events, Newcastle’s announcement seems more important than ever.

This pilot plant has had six years of research in the making. As IPCC and U of Hawaii said we are out of time.