Mineral carbonation
Will the CarbFix approach maybe have a cost advantage over the long term?
The goal of the CarbFix Project is to study the feasibility of permanent carbon dioxide storage in basaltic rocks via in situ mineralization of the gas itself. In other words, as the New York Times put it, in a recent article, '...turning carbon dioxide into rock and burying it'.
Using the reactive power of basalt
If long-term monitoring is unnecessary, such a method would be very cost effective
Carbon Capture & Storage
The world will continue to experience the effects of climate change unless we reduce atmospheric carbon
The CarbFix project is designed to optimize industrial methods for storing CO2 in basaltic rocks. The combined programme consists of:
- Field scale injection of CO2 charged waters into basaltic rocks, at the Hellisheidi natural laboratory in SW Iceland, where conditions are ideal as basalt is basically what Iceland is made of
- Laboratory based experiments with an emphasis on quantifying basalt dissolution and carbonate precipitation rates stemming from CO2 injection
- A study of natural analogues plus state of the art geochemical modelling to interpret the laboratory experiments and field work as well as to predict and optimize the long-term behavior of CO2
Dr Juerg Matter is Associate Professor in Geo-engineering within Ocean and Earth Science at the National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton.
Credit: Photographs courtesy of Bara Kristinsdottir for The New York Times