Carbfix is the industrial process to capture CO2 and other sour gases from emission sources and permanently store it as rock. The process can also be applied to the direct capture of CO2 from the air. The CarbFix project is a collaboration between utility company Reykjavik Energy, the University of Iceland, France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Columbia University in the United States.
CarbFix has received support from the European Union through the FP7 and H2020 research programs, allowing for continuous and active collaboration between industry players and academic scholars.
The CarbFix team, lead by Reykjavik Energy, has developed a secure, cost-effective and environmentally benign process and technology for permanent CO2 mineral storage in the subsurface. So far, the team has demonstrated that over 95% of the CO2 that was captured and injected was turned into rock in the subsurface in less than two years. This opposes common opinion that mineral storage in CCS projects takes hundreds to thousands of years.
At the end of 2018, 66,000 tons of sour gases had been captured and injected at Hellisheidi, 2/3rd of which were CO2 and 1/3rd H2S. This accounts for an over 40% reduction in emissions from the power plant. The current grant ensures the project’s funding until 2021.