Alan Ohnsman of Forbes reports on a startup that is lowering ocean acidity and creating green hydrogen.
- Oceans are a carbon sink but as CO2 emissions rise, the oceans are becoming more acidic which harms sea life.
- Equatic, a Los Angeles-based startup, is looking to solve this issue with technology that removes CO2 from the ocean and converts it calcium carbonate while simultaneously producing clean hydrogen fuel.
- By reducing the amount of CO2 in seawater, the company is also freeing up space for the ocean to absorb even more carbon dioxide.
- Equatic will launch two pilot plants this year, one in LA and one in Singapore, and has recently received backing from Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan.
“This approach was sketched out in a paper Sant and other UCLA scientists published in 2021 on what they call ‘single-step carbon sequestration and storage.’ It envisions future plants that would be large electrochemical reactors, with lots of tanks, plumbing and piping, that suck in millions of gallons of seawater and pass it through an electrically charged mesh to increase its pH. This induces a series of chemical reactions, including combining dissolved carbon dioxide in the water, and CO2 in the air, with calcium and magnesium. These two elements trap CO2, becoming calcium and magnesium carbonates—materials found in chalk and seashells. Hydrogen is simultaneously produced as a byproduct.”
Read the full article here.
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