Date: Jul 16, 2012 Source: Company Data (
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St. Louis, MO (July 16, 2012) -- Today Akermin announces that it has signed an agreement to install and operate a pilot plant incorporating Akermin's novel biocatalyst delivery system at the National Carbon Capture Center. As part of a two-year project, partially funded through a grant from the US Department of Energy (Grant No. DE-FE0004228), Akermin is designing a pilot plant to demonstrate the performance of its biocatalyst delivery system working with carbonate chemistry for high efficiency carbon dioxide capture.
The project is on schedule to be commissioned in the 4th quarter of this year and will allow Akermin to demonstrate sustained biocatalyst performance over an extended period when capturing carbon dioxide from the flue gas of a coal-fired power plant. Akermin intends to operate the pilot plant for up to six months. During this period, Akermin will collect data to validate system performance, including: biocatalyst performance, energy consumption, carbon dioxide removal efficiency, capture of residual SOx and NOx emissions, by-product quality for potential resale and other parameters.
"This project signifies Akermin's transition from laboratory testing and development to field pilot testing and demonstration marking a key step towards commercialization of our technology." said Barry Blackwell, Akermin President & CEO. "The results from this pilot project will help to prove the viability of our technology to capture carbon dioxide from industrial processes and accelerate development of commercial partnerships and future demonstration projects covering multiple market applications."
Akermin's biocatalyst delivery system incorporates the use of an enzyme that is being supplied by Novozymes; a leading multi-national enzyme supplier, based in Denmark. The pilot plant is sized to capture over 90% of incoming carbon dioxide. Akermin's current prototype has been operated on a continuous basis for several months in a bench-scale system that captures carbon dioxide from synthetic gas and has demonstrated excellent performance. In recent weeks, this system was relocated to operate on a coal-fired boiler capturing carbon dioxide from actual flue gas containing SOx, NOx, mercury, particulates and other impurities. In these tests, the system demonstrated excellent performance by continuously capturing over 90% of incoming carbon dioxide over a period of three weeks. During this period, there was no observable decline in biocatalyst activity.
About Akermin, Inc.
Akermin is a St. Louis-based company developing the most energy and cost efficient system for carbon dioxide management. The Company is introducing nature's perfect catalyst, an enzyme, to enable the use of carbonate chemistry to develop economically-advantageous and environmentally-friendly carbon capture solutions across multiple industrial applications. Akermin uses a multi-discipline approach to efficiently integrate a biocatalyst within a proprietary delivery system that we incorporate in a traditional chemical absorption process. Our proprietary biocatalyst delivery system solves the issue of enabling the enzyme to effectively work as a biocatalyst over extended periods in harsh industrial environments. Akermin is currently transitioning from laboratory research to field demonstrations and establishing industrial partnerships for commercial delivery. Initial commercial sales are expected in 2015 targeting multi-billion dollar industrial carbon capture applications including natural gas, fertilizer, gasification, industrial hydrogen, oil sands, and power plants.
