CCS Mineralisation

• Detailed study of availability and distribution of suitable materials to economically capture and store CO2 emissions
• Abundance of materials to meet mitigation targets

This £1m project, launched in May 2010 carried out a detailed study of the availability and distribution of suitable minerals across the UK along with studying the technologies that could be used to economically capture and store CO2 emissions. CCS by mineralisation has been identified by leading researchers as a promising additional method of sequestering CO2 emissions. Minerals and CO2 could react together to permanently store CO2 as a solid carbonate product, which could then be safely stored, used as an aggregate or turned into useful end products such as bricks or filler for concrete.

The project consortium involved Caterpillar, BGS and the University of Nottingham.

The objective was to investigate the potential for CCS Mineralisation to mitigate at least 2% of current UK CO2 emissions and 2% of worldwide emissions over a 100- year period. The project found that there is an abundance of suitable minerals available in the UK and worldwide to meet these mitigation targets. However, challenges remain to make the capture process economically attractive and to reduce its energy use. Significant niche opportunities existed where waste materials could be used as feedstock and/or the process produces value-added products, but markets would not have been at the level required to meet the mitigation targets.