Isramart : Local company brings carbon reduction innovator to town

Isramart news:


For most of us, the concept of absorption is likely limited to evaluating the capabilities of a paper towel in the face of spilt milk.

But American researcher Kent Knaebel believes it just might be a key component to solving global warming without pulling everyone out of their cars and putting an end to construction.

He has developed a different absorption process to separate carbon dioxide—one of the gases you often hear attached to concerns about global warming—from flue gas, the byproduct of power production.

“I think about half of the carbon dioxide released in North America, most of which comes from the United States, comes from coal burning power plants. And probably about five per cent from cement plants,” said Knaebel, as he sat down to talk with the Capital News before a talk he was giving at the Okanagan Research and Innovation Centre.

Knaebel is one of the world’s leading absorption experts and taught at Ohio State University for 12 years before dedicating his time to developing and honing scientific processes. His work has him looking at everything from converting landfill gas to fuel cars to capturing the carbon dioxide to make industrial oxygen—a process he’s worked on for a local company.

He was in Kelowna Wednesday and Thursday to speak with investors at Wearair, a Kelowna tech startup selling a solution they’ve developed for producing industrial oxygen with less energy.

But it’s how his research applies to some of the reputed catastrophic problems of our time that had him giving a free talk to the local science and engineering community Wednesday evening.

“For every tonne of cement produced, there is a tonne of carbon dioxide released. It’s really an astounding amount,” said Knaebel, as he explained how critical learning to capture carbon dioxide could be to the planet’s success. “(What we’ve developed) is one patented process to take carbon dioxide out of flue gas,” he said, adding it’s not the only one, but he believes it’s the most efficient.

The process uses absorbents to suck up the carbon dioxide; the absorbent is then burnt off in the heat of the process.

One common absorbent people might recognized is silica gel. Often found in little packets in a new pair of shoes or packaging shipped from overseas, it is used to prevent mold and corrosion. But silica gel is just one of a whole host of absorbents Knaebel’s company, Absorption Research Inc., could eventually use to reduce those GHGs.

While the company hasn’t yet honed in on one absorbing agent, Knaebel said they could use plenty of products already in use in the average home—like zeolites, a category of absorbents currently used in water filtration systems.

Locally, his method is part of a new production process Wearair has refined to produce industrial oxygen, which could be used in hospitals or as fuel for fires, using less energy. Wearair president and CEO Guy Gaiser wants to sell the company he and his partners have developed within the year and he is currently trying to find investors to move forward.

The company is basically three local entrepreneurs working out of their homes, but with experts like Knaebel on board they are on the cusp of that success, he said.

It’s taken just three years for them to break into what is a $15-billion dollar a year industry.

Licensing, funding and negotiating the bureaucracy needed to move forward with the tech companies Knaebel’s work could enable is extremely difficult, Knaebel said.

He has had to put up the seed money for his development research himself, although he also believes both the scientific and business community in Canada are in a better position.

“There’s no doubt people in Canada have taken a stronger interest in carbon capture than those in the United States,” he said. “In Canada, I think people care about the environment a lot. In the United States it’s not that people don’t care about the environment, but until there’s irrefutable truth, they won’t make the investment to do it.”

He already has a patent for his carbon capture process but has been waiting three years for a patent on the process which would see cars fueled by landfill gas.

Wearair sponsored Knaebel’s talk as part of a new series ORIC is offering called Innovation Plaza inviting the public to come and interact with leading science and technology experts.