Technology

Tools to Remove It and Prove It

We’ve developed two technology innovations that enable fully-measured scalable carbon capture, removal, and storage using any water.

A CO₂ Neutralization Process

Combines high-CO₂ water with natural minerals to instantly generate HCO₃ in water, a permanent carbon sink. Vycarb’s system controls the pH mediated neutralization reaction by actively dissolving a range of natural minerals, ensuring that carbon is stored permanently and safely.

A Direct Measurement Sensor

A hardware-software technology that quantifies the full dissolved inorganic carbon system — CO₂, HCO₃, and CO₃ — in real time. This enables real-time measurement control in our COe neutralization to optimize to variable input conditions, and demonstrates how much CO₂ was stored as HCO₃ and CO₃, and that the resulting water is safe for release.

Scientific Basis

Carbonic acid (CO₂ + H₂O → H₂CO₃) is  neutralized through the dissolution reaction with alkaline minerals to form HCO₃⁻ (bicarbonate) and CO₃²⁻ (carbonate) ions in water. This is a natural process that can be accelerated and controlled. 

Bicarbonate and carbonate in the ocean are largest the permanent (>10,000 yr) reservoir of carbon on the earth’s surface, storing over 200 trillion tonnes!

Using Vycarb’s sensor to quantify incoming CO₂, HCO₃, and CO₃ as control on mineral alkalinity dissolution ensures resulting water chemistry safe for release while effectively capturing and storing CO₂ in water.

Our technology is rooted in principles of chemical oceanography and climate science.

Differentiators

In a rapidly growing field of CO₂ solutions technologies, ours stands out as a robust, transparent, and practical solution to be scaled rapidly in a wide range of settings.

  • Near-Turnkey Solution: Unlike other carbon management technologies, Vycarb captures and stores CO₂ instantaneously on-site. 

  • Supply-Chain Flexibility: Vycarb’s technology is flexible to input CO₂ source and concentration, input water chemistry, and input alkaline mineral type. 

  • Speed: Unlike geologic mineral carbon storage, Vycarb’s water-based approach is instantaneous, avoiding needs for long-term site monitoring. 

  • Fully Measured: Measurement integration and reporting software ensure water chemistry is safe and carbon storage is permanent, with real-time data that is fully auditable and sharable with stakeholders, regulators, and customers. 

  • Permanent Storage: CO₂ stored in our process remains locked away from the atmosphere for 10,000 - 100,000 years.

  • Low-Infrastructure: While traditional CO₂ capture and storage requires CO₂ transportation infrastructure and high energy needs, our system can be dropped in to store CO₂ with little new infrastructure. 

  • Cobenefits: The process of storing CO₂ as HCO₃ and CO₃ in natural ocean water directly reduces water acidification, providing measurable environmental benefits in many locations.  

  • Easily Permitted: Our combination of real-time measurement and immediate chemistry-controlled reaction ensures safe and traceable water chemistry upon release, meeting rigorous in permitting requirements.

Distributed water treatment and sensing technology to capture and store CO₂ safely and permanently in natural water.