A Brooklyn, N.Y.-based startup is conferring with cement producers on prospective demonstration of a process capturing and storing carbon dioxide from plant emissions. Vycarb has pioneered a novel approach to permanently sequester CO₂ from industrial source points in proximity to rivers or water flows reaching ocean outfalls.
A reactor at the heart of the Vycarb process uses naturally occurring calcium- or magnesium-rich materials to convert CO2 into a stable form of carbon, dissolved bicarbonate (HCO₃⁻). The inert compound locks up CO2 during transfer in fresh water flows to the ocean, where nature fosters carbon storage for 10,000 to 100,000 years. Vycarb chemists have developed a unique sensor capable of quantifying the bicarbonate’s concentration in a volume of water – a critical step in proving CO2 emissions tonnages prevented from release to the atmosphere.
While it continues to engage producers in cement and other carbon-intensive industrial segments, Vycarb is proving its approach in a home base pilot. A Brooklyn Navy Yard-staged demonstration reactor and transfer assembly are converting industrial CO2 and conveying processed bicarbonate to the East River, just inland of the Atlantic Ocean.
The demonstration commenced in 2024, two years after the Vycarb launch. Founder Dr. Garrett Boudinot mapped a business plan after earning a Ph.D. in Organic Geochemistry from the University of Colorado Boulder; leading carbon management research at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.; and, serving on the New York State Climate Impacts Assessment. Years of studying led him to conclude: “Nature already moves and safely stores carbon. If we can accelerate, control, and measure that function better, then we can unlock natural carbon storage for global, massive scale climate solutions.”
The potential to deliver permanent, verifiable and safe industrial CO2 management at a fraction of established carbon capture and storage methods’ cost and energy load garnered Vycarb initial backing from London mining giant Rio Tinto and BlueScopeX, a climate-driven capital arm of Australia’s BlueScope Steel Ltd. Investors in a subsequent funding round included Idemitsu, Katapult and MOL Switch.
Process veracity, moreover, has enabled Vycarb to market early carbon credits to buyers including Stripe and reach the semifinalist stage of a U.S. Department of Energy CO2 removal purchase program.
