A Novel Approach to Mineral Carbonation:
Enhancing Carbonation While Avoiding Mineral Pretreatment Process Cost
Project # 42124

Primary Performing Organization
Arizona State University

In this project, researchers at Arizona State University (ASU) will investigate methods to improve the economics of mineral carbonation. In the mineral carbonation process, captured CO₂ is reacted with a naturally occurring mineral, such as olivine, to form a stable mineral carbonate. The process offers the potential to sequester CO₂ permanently in geologically stable mineral carbonate rocks that will not require the continuous monitoring necessary with many other sequestration technologies. However, the process requires energy intensive preparation of the solid reactants. Therefore, cost effectively increasing carbonation reactivity is the key to economic viability.

Previous studies revealed that during carbonation, silica rich passivating layers form on the olivine surface, substantially inhibiting mineral carbonation. As carbonation proceeds these layers thicken and exfoliate, exposing new surfaces as the process continues. In this project, ASU researchers will investigate novel low-cost approaches with the potential to facilitate passivating layer exfoliation to enhance the carbonation reaction. These studies will be further integrated with advanced computational modeling of key phenomena to develop an atomic level understanding of the mechanisms that govern carbonation reactivity and exfoliation.

FIGURE 1:
Scanning electron micrograph showing silica-rich passivating layer exfoliation. A) the passivating layer; B) a recently fractured and exfoliated region exposing part of the olivine particle core; C) a new passivating layer beginning to grow in the exfoliated region.

If successful, this project could substantially reduce process cost and would provide a significant advance in understanding mineral carbonation reaction mechanisms.

Contact:
Project Manager: David A. Lang, david.lang@netl.doe.gov

Related Papers and Publications:

• A Novel Approach to Mineral Carbonation Fact Sheet [PDF]