Capturing Carbon Dioxide From Industry Using Smart Chemistry

18 January 2010

Isis Innovation is working with University of Oxford chemists who have developed a new process for capturing and storing carbon dioxide. Professor Dermot O’Hare and Dr Andrew Ashley have developed the process, which operates under mild conditions and converts carbon dioxide (CO₂) to methanol - a useful industrial chemical and fuel.

The ability to capture and efficiently store or use CO₂ in an environmentally friendly manner is highly desirable. The work has been published in premier chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie.

Isis has patented the technology and is working with the inventors to put in place a strategy for commercial development.

Nearly a third of the world’s energy consumption and 36 per cent of CO₂ emissions are attributable to manufacturing industries¹. Effective carbon capture technologies are an important part of any overall strategy for reducing the environmental impact of industry.

“The Oxford technique offers a cheaper and more robust process for removing waste CO₂ before it enters the atmosphere,” said Professor O’Hare of Oxford’s Chemistry Research Laboratory, the lead scientist on the project. “We expect this to be attractive to industry because of a number of key aspects.

“It works at low temperatures and pressures, easily achievable in most industrial environments without added equipment and costs.

“It doesn’t require expensive and toxic transition metal catalysts, but uses what’s known as a ‘frustrated Lewis acid base pair’ which is commonly available and converts the CO₂ to methanol without producing undesirable side-products such as carbon monoxide or methane.

“Current technology is not selective for methanol and therefore not carbon efficient. Side products of other carbon capture technologies such as carbon monoxide and methane can also be just as undesirable as CO₂.”

O’Hare also explained that the reaction is not poisoned by carbon monoxide, which is often a problematic gas present in industrial output as it is created during incomplete combustion.

Methanol, the product of the Oxford carbon capture process, is widely used as a solvent and also as a fuel. The current technique for making methanol also relies on using fossil fuels; therefore as well as removing CO₂ from the atmosphere, the Oxford process also creates a useful by-product.

The chemistry team who developed the technology also included Dr Amber Thompson. 

O’Hare’s group are currently working on further developments to the technology to make the process suitable for industry. Isis Innovation welcomes contact from industrial partners with experience in commercialisation of catalytic processes.

A. E. Ashley, A.L. Thompson, D.M.OHare, ‘Non-Metal-Mediated Homogeneous Hydrogenation of CO2 to CH3OH’ Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2009, 48, 1 – 6

Reference(s)

1. International Energy Agency 2007, Tracking Industrial Energy Efficiency and CO₂ Emissions. http://www.iea.org/Textbase/npsum/tracking2007SUM.pdf

For more information please contact

Dr Jamie Ferguson
Project Manager, Isis Innovation
E: jamie.ferguson@isis.ox.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)1865 280851

About Isis

Isis Innovation is the University of Oxford's technology transfer company and manages the University's intellectual property portfolio, working with University researchers on identifying, protecting and marketing technologies through licensing, spin-out company formation and material sales. Isis files on average one new patent application each week, has concluded over 400 technology licensing agreements, and established 64 new spin-out companies from Oxford. Isis also manages Oxford University Consulting, which arranges consulting services providing clients access to the world-class expertise of the University's academics to enhance innovative capability. Last year OUC arranged over 150 consulting deals. Isis has established a separate business division, Isis Enterprise, offering consulting expertise and advice in technology transfer and open innovation to university, government and industrial clients around the world. Isis was founded in 1987 and is today one of the world's leading technology transfer and innovation management companies.
www.isis-innovation.com