The coal-based Tuticorin Thermal Power Station owned by the government of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, is using a new proprietary solvent developed by the Mumbai-born Carbon Clean Solutions, which converts carbon dioxide from the flue gases to baking soda, a base chemical with a wide range of uses including glass manufacture, sweeteners, detergents and paper products. The company claims that its chemicals will lock up 60,000 tons of CO2 a year.
The Guardian reports that the inventors of the new process are two young chemists at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. They failed to find Indian finance and were welcomed instead by the U.K. government, which offered grants and a special entrepreneur status in London.
Carbon Clean’s headquarters are now based in London’s Paddington district. Its CEO, Aniruddha Sharma, said, “So far the ideas for carbon capture have mostly looked at big projects, and the risk is so high they are very expensive to finance. We want to set up small-scale plants that de-risk the technology by making it a completely normal commercial option.”
