Austria’s Carbon Capture Breakthrough: CO2 Capture & Liquefacation Facility at EnergieWerk Ilg Operational
Food-grade bioCO2
Ivan Derkink, Head of Sales at Bright Renewables, says: “Decentralized CO₂ capture is a game-changer, both for the market as for a business becoming more resilient. It provides green CO₂ to a fossil fuel-dominated market and is a crucial technology for reaching net zero and ensuring supply chain stability”.
The complete newly installed system has been installed on the roof of EnergieWerk Ilg’s existing facility, reducing its physical footprint. It captures CO₂ directly from the flue gas of EnergieWerk Ilg’s wood-fuelled combined heat and power (CHP) plant and purifies it into liquid bio-CO₂.
From its first day of operation, the facility is producing high-quality CO₂ certified for the food and beverage industry, enabling biogenic CO₂ to replace fossil-derived CO₂ in applications including drinks carbonation and food preservation.
Closing the carbon cycle
This project demonstrates how nature and technology can be combined to create a near-closed carbon loop:
- Growing trees capture CO₂ from the atmosphere. Branches, bark and parts unusable for timber production can be chipped and repurposed as woodchips.
- These woodchips are used as fuel in the wood gasification plant, producing electricity, district heating, and bio-char.
- Around one-third of the CO₂ absorbed by the tree is (semi-)permanently stored in the bio-char, creating a stable carbon sink (CCS).
- The remaining CO₂ is released into the flue gas.
- Bright’s carbon capture system extracts and liquefies another half of the originally tree-captured CO₂ into food-grade CO₂.
- Most of the tree’s original captured CO₂ will now be permanently stored or used.
Carbon capture & liquefaction technology
Post-combustion carbon capture can be done by utilizing both amine-based carbon capture technology and Vacuum Swing Adsorption (VSA) technology to separate CO2 from flue gas. Both technologies are applicable for the addition of CO2 liquefaction technology and both technologies have a high yield of gaseous CO2. In this Austrian project, amine-based technology is applied. The CO2 liquefaction process at Bright Renewables utilizes carbon dioxide as its own refrigerant, replacing synthetic refrigerants like Freon or Ammonia.
Carbon capture & CO2 liquefaction plant in Dornbirn, Austria
