A direct air capture company that works to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, Heirloom, and Leilac, a decarbonisation technology partner, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the use of Leilac kiln technology in Heirloom direct air capture technology.
The MOU outlines the key terms for a binding licence and collaboration agreement, that is expected to be executed in the coming weeks.
The partnership between the two companies brings together two leading climate technologies to provide an innovative and scalable approach to atmospheric removal of CO2 by direct air capture.
The Heirloom direct air capture technology uses lime in a novel carbonation process to directly capture CO2 from the air and form limestone. This process accelerates the natural binding of CO2 and lime from a period of years to just three days.
After binding and removing the produced CO2 from the air, the reformed limestone is fed back into the renewably powered Leilac kiln, where the CO2 is separated and captured, and the cycle begins again.
The CO2 removed from the air will be mineralised, where it is bound to rocks or other materials, or injected underground into existing natural geological structures, where it remains safely and permanently stored.
Speaking on the incorporation of Leilac technology into Heirloom direct air capture solutions, chief executive officer of Heirloom, Shashank Samala, said that the partnership will speed up the perceptible benefits of the Heirloom solution.
“We’re incredibly excited about incorporating Leilac’s world-leading electric kiln technology into our Direct Air Capture facilities,” Samala said, “because it will accelerate our efforts to capture 1 billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere by 2035 owing to its highly modular and energy-efficient design.”
In welcoming the announcement, chief executive officer of Leilac , Daniel Rennie said that the partnership is essential for the future of decarbonation.
“Leilac is delighted to be partnering with Heirloom. Our partnership will apply Leilac’s core technology for cement and lime decarbonisation to address the global challenge of excess atmospheric CO2,” he said.
“Heirloom and Leilac are well matched. Heirloom is a sophisticated and innovative Direct Air Capture company who shares our mission to reduce and remove global CO2 emissions. Heirloom uses low-cost and abundant limestone, which Leilac’s technology is specifically designed for. Both technologies are modular, easily scalable and can be renewably powered.
“Over more than eight years, Leilac’s decarbonisation technology has been developed for, and in partnership with, the cement and lime industries. Leilac’s pilot plant, Leilac-1 has proven the Leilac technology at a scale significantly beyond all existing DAC facilities. Leilac is well advanced on its pathway to engineering multiple capture facilities each with around one million tonnes of annual CO2 capacity, via the development of a replicable module in Leilac-2.
“We are grateful to our partners and the investment from the European Union for all we have achieved to date. While industrial decarbonisation continues as our core focus, we are very pleased to be able to leverage our technology to help rapidly scale solutions to mitigate the excess carbon dioxide already in our atmosphere.”
Leilac’s calcination technology works to separate and capture CO2 from limestone to produce decarbonised lime. The indirect heating approach requires no additional chemicals or processes and can be directly powered by renewable electricity.
By keeping the process CO2 emissions pure in the calcination process, the technology from Leilac removes the need to separate gases produced, enabling it to target the lowest cost solution for the capture of CO2 from limestone.
The technology partnership makes use of eight years of investment from the European Union and cement and lime industries to support further progress within the direct air capture industry.