IES' CO2 Reduction Technology

Unlike CCS, instead of capturing and storing CO2, IES’ approach is to actually break down the CO2 into its component atoms: carbon and oxygen.  Rather than creating a waste stream that has to be transported, injected and maintained in underground storage indefinitely, IES’ technology converts the CO2 into valuable end products that can be used in other industrial processes (e.g., high-purity graphite is used in hybrid electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels, and semiconductors).  Until now, due to the strong bond energy between the atoms in CO2, breaking down CO2 to graphite and oxygen has proved to be uneconomic and carbon negative.  That is, the generation of the required energy to break the bond produced more CO2 than was eliminated by the process.  Our patent pending technology solves this challenge.  By pre-processing the CO2, the molecular bonds can be broken with only a third of the bond energy (somewhat like a crude oil refinery uses catalytic devices to reduce the energy needed to refine crude oil).  As a result, the process becomes carbon positive, eliminating more CO2 than is produced in generating the required energy.

At a minimum, IES’s CO2 Reduction Technology will have the following three major applications to help power generation plants and industrial facilities reduce their CO2 emissions. The cost of the technology for the facility will depend upon the facility characteristics and which elements of the CO2 Reduction Technology are used. The three leading applications for this technology are:

1. At new power plants, carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and sulfur oxides (SOx) emissions can be simultaneously reduced in a single carbon positive process, offering the potential to lower the plant’s construction costs by 10% or more.
   
   The cost of modern NOx and SOx emission control systems at power plants is generally 15% to 20% of the total construction cost. Adding the cost of CO2 emission reduction to the mix, emission control systems at new power plants may reach 20% to 30% of the total construction cost. Since the bond energy of CO2 is higher than that of NOx and SOx, laboratory tests of the IES technology have demonstrated that co-existing NOx and SOx can be simultaneously reduced when the CO2 in the flue gas is converted to graphite and oxygen.
   
   
2. At natural-gas fired power plants, CO2 emissions can be carbon positively and  energy efficiently converted into valuable end products (graphite and oxygen) that can be used in other industrial processes or simply to boost combustion efficiency of the boilers.
   
   
3. At industrial facilities or even CCS storage facilities, CO2 emissions can be carbon positively and energy efficiently converted into carbon and oxygen. An important application will be installation on CO2 emission sources at smaller industrial users.   IES technology offers significant potential to cost effectively eliminate CO2 emissions at industrial facilities that are too small to use CCS technology.   

The company’s customers will largely be industrial firms falling into three basic groups.

• Large fixed source fossil fuel users, primarily electrical power companies using coal, fuel oil and natural gas to produce electricity, but also large industrial users of fossil fuels such as cement plants, metal producers, refineries and process steam users. 

• Fossil fuel users that choose to meet their CO2 reduction needs by buying credits through environmental cap-and-trade markets such as ECX.  These primarily could be industrial users of fossil fuels, but could include commercial establishments or even individual users that wish to have a zero carbon footprint.

• Industrial users of graphite.

For the first group of customers, we will be installing our IES’ CO2 Reduction Technology at their plants and operating the equipment around the clock daily.  As we will be co-located at their facilities and will have operating systems that interface with theirs during the life cycle of the facility, once our technology is selected, it is likely that the relationship will continue for decades. 

IES is in the process of selecting a facility in the United States for a large scale demonstration project.  The objective is to demonstrate the technology in a field setting and to showcase the effectiveness and cost advantages in reducing CO2 emissions when compared to other technologies.  IES is also working to lay the groundwork for the technology’s rapid deployment upon successful completion of the demonstration project.