Ocean-inspired technology could accelerate carbon capture from ships

The ocean has a hidden talent, perfected over millennia: the ability to capture and store large quantities of carbon dioxide, a key driver of climate change. However, natural carbon capture cycles in the oceans, which last hundreds of thousands of years, cannot keep pace with carbon emissions generated by human activity. The global shipping industry alone contributes around 3% of global CO2 emissions.

Now, new technology inspired by the ocean itself offers a potential solution. Researchers from USC and Caltech, working with startup Calcarea, have developed a device to capture carbon emissions directly from cargo ships and other diesel-powered vessels that support the global shipping industry.

“Our technology mimics the ocean’s natural carbon capture process, but at an exponentially faster rate,” said William Berelson, Paxson H. Offield Professor of Coastal and Marine Systems at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and one of the main leaders of the project. researchers. “What takes nature years, our reactors do in just minutes,” said Berelson, who spoke with USC News at AltaSea, the public-private ocean institute headquartered in the Port of Los Angeles – one of the largest and busiest ports in the world. port in the United States by volume.

Carbon capture: Tums for the ocean

The natural reaction in the ocean resembles a common home remedy: antacid tablets such as Tums.

Limestone, a type of calcium carbonate and the main ingredient in antacids, is abundant on the seabed. Just like you take a pill to neutralize acid for an upset stomach, the ocean uses limestone to neutralize the excess CO2 it absorbs from the atmosphere. The byproduct of this reaction is bicarbonate, a natural component of seawater.

The researchers’ technology, a pair of reactors aptly named Ripple 1 and Ripple 2, works similarly. The reactors currently carry CO2 directly from engine exhaust gases and transform it into a solution slightly enriched with bicarbonate. This solution is then safely released into the ocean with minimal impact on overall water chemistry. Essentially, the reactors return water to a slightly saltier version of its natural state, with negligible impact on marine life.

From the laboratory to the sea

Reactor technology has undergone rigorous development. Researchers developed the Ripple 1 prototype on USC’s University Park campus to test carbon capture in seawater under carefully controlled conditions.

The promising results of these first tests paved the way for the Ripple 2 reactor. This iteration is currently being tested at AltaSea. Since the beginning, USC scientists have been verifying that Ripple’s effluent does not harm ocean life.

“The beauty of this technology is its scalability,” said Berelson, who recently won the USC Wrigley Institute for Environment and Sustainability Faculty Innovation Award in recognition of this carbon capture research. “Our goal is to develop this technology into a commercially viable solution that can be easily integrated into existing transportation operations. By implementing it on a commercial scale in the shipping sector, we hope to significantly reduce global CO2 emissions.

“More than 90% of the products we use in our daily lives have traveled on a ship at some point. If we are thinking about how to solve our CO2 problem as a society, we need to be aware that we cannot electrify every sector of industry,” said Jess Adkins, founder and CEO of Calcarea and the Smits Family Professor of Geochemistry and Global Environmental Sciences at Caltech.

“Shipping is a good example of an industry that is not electrifying well. It is difficult to imagine ships running on batteries, although we must, as a society, move towards renewable energy,” he said.

The technology is already gaining ground in the shipping industry. Calcarea recently announced a partnership with Lomar Shipping’s venture capital lab, lomarlabs, to commercialize and deploy its onboard carbon capture system.

“Our technology offers lower energy demand, lower costs and requires less infrastructure than comparable alternatives to reduce shipping emissions,” Adkins said. “But we need the support of ship owners and operators themselves to get our system out into the industry and used. This collaboration will accelerate the testing and marine engineering needed to bring our system into operation and ultimately reduce emissions.