Lafarge Canada's carbon capture project enters final phase

Lafarge Canada has announced a tri-party agreement with Svante Technologies Inc and Dimensional Energy, Inc to bring a demonstration of Dimensional Energy’s carbon dioxide utilisation technology to Lafarge’s cement plant in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. In 2019, through a joint industry partnership between Svante, Total SA, and Lafarge, Svante installed Project CO₂MENT, a demonstration carbon capture plant to capture 1tpd of CO₂ emissions from Lafarge’s operations at the Richmond plant. 

The project commenced in three phases: Pre-treatment, CO₂ capture, and Utilisation. The demonstration has allowed Svante to de-risk its carbon capture technology in a cement industrial environment, focusing over the last two years on pre-treatment of the cement flue gas and increasing the efficiency of CO₂ capture using its proprietary Metal Organic Framework (MOF) advanced sorbent. Throughout the project, Lafarge has directed efforts to determine a suitable end use for the captured CO₂. Given the lack of CO₂ transportation and sequestration infrastructure in southern British Columbia today, utilisation of captured CO₂ is fundamental to the decarbonisation of large industries in the region. 

This new agreement transitions the project into phase 3. Phase 3 will convert the 1tpd of CO₂ captured by Svante to produce approximately 1.5 barrels per day of synthetic hydrocarbons. Dimensional Energy’s technology will convert the CO₂ with green hydrogen to syngas using its patented reactor and catalyst technology. This renewable syngas will be further processed into liquid hydrocarbons with Dimensional’s proprietary integration of downstream hydrocarbon synthesis.

These synthetic hydrocarbons can be used in the production of industrial wax products and other high value products that place previously emitted carbon in an industrial use cycle. Premium grade pure waxes produced from Dimensional’s process will be of interest to other offtake partners such as manufacturers of plastics, lubricants, cosmetics, among others. By using this technology for the production of fuels and products that people use every day, the goal is to lower the carbon intensity of our entire economy once scaled.

Stephanie Voysey, head of sustainability, Lafarge Canada (West), said, "Carbon capture is an important lever in our net-zero roadmap. However, for a carbon capture project to succeed, it must be paired with permanent geologic sequestration or utilisation technology that will permanently isolate the CO₂ in a specific media or product. If this pilot can be scaled to capture and use all facility emissions, it would be a first of its kind project for Lafarge and advance export and global adoption of this technology.”