Valorisation Carbone Quebec – a Unique CO2 Capture and Reuse Project

The Québec Government has allocated $15M from its Green Fund towards a project led by CO2 Solutions and supported by Université Laval. The project is named Valorisation Carbone Québec (VCQ).

The objective of VCQ is to demonstrate CO₂ capture and reuse at large scale and, with supporting techno-economic analysis, convince large industrial emitters to adopt the demonstrated CO₂ capture and reuse technologies for subsequent commercial deployment. The uniqueness of VCQ arises from two aspects: its leadership from the private sector while being funded publicly and its ambitious timeframe of only thirty months. To achieve its objective, VCQ will work along two complementary tracks: demonstration and development.

With regards to the demonstration track, VCQ will engineer, build, install and operate the greenest CO₂ capture unit (no atmospheric emissions and solvent degradation products) and one or more CO₂ conversion units which will be located at a petrochemical host plant in Montreal East. The CO₂ capture unit will, de facto, integrate the CO2 Solutions enzymatic CO₂ capture process and will use its existing 10 tpd demonstration capture unit as a starting point. The unit will be upgraded within the VCQ project to integrate recent technological advances proving it as the only solvent-based capture technology with a positive Life Cycle Assessment. The CO₂ reuse unit(s) will be realized in partnership with organizations providing these reuse technologies with matching maturation level.

The development track will consist of investments into existing research projects focused on CO₂ reuse. These projects may have been initiated by universities or research centers (public or private). The objective is to detect the technologies with the closest maturation level and to validate their potential within the VCQ timeframe. The investment will help accelerate their development to a level sufficient for application at the demonstration scale.

VCQ ambitions to be the World’s leading demonstration CO₂ capture and reuse project. Private and public partners are invited to join this innovative approach to make the deployment of commercially viable carbon capture and reuse technologies a commercial reality. The successful completion of VCQ will result in meaningful and economically viable impact on the reduction of CO₂ emissions. The presentation will cover the site description, the configuration adopted for capture and conversion of CO2, the methodology adopted to evaluate the numerous potential technologies for conversion, and some of the retained technologies.