CarbonQuest Inc. has partnered with an Icelandic CO2 storage operator to accelerate emission reduction in North America, says Anna Pavlova, an executive with the Spokane Valley-based clean tech company.

The two companies will collaborate to help medium-scale CO2 emitters, such as small to midsized companies and multifamily buildings, decarbonize their operations in the U.S. and Canada, say Pavlova, who is CarbonQuest's senior vice president of strategy, market development, and sustainability. 

CarbonQuest chose to work with Carbfix due to its proven technology, she says, and because Carbfix targets locations with large basalt formations for carbon storage. Such geological formations are plentiful across the U.S. and Canada, especially in Eastern Washington and the Pacific Northwest. 

As earlier reported in the Journal, CarbonQuest’s proprietary Distributed Carbon Capture Technology is designed to collect, separate, liquify, and store emissions from large buildings, preventing them from being released into the atmosphere. Reykjavic-based Carbfix developed a technology that can turn CO2 into stone within two years.  

“We’re taking the two companies, Carbfix and ourselves, and taking a large, market-scale approach,” Pavlova says. “We don’t want to just do one small project here and there; we want to go after the market and see where opportunities are.” 

Another reason CarbonQuest wanted to partner with Carbfix is because its technology is unlike what is typically done to store CO2 in the U.S.

Carbfix has developed a technology that dissolves CO2 in water and injects it into porous basalt rock formations in which the carbon mineralizes within two years, a process that naturally takes thousands of years. 

Currently, the U.S. practices sequestration, in which the Environmental Protection Agency issues a permit to drill a deep well in which CO2 that is in a critical state between a gas and a liquid is pumped and then sealed shut. That site is then monitored for a number of years to prevent the CO2 from leaking and to control it in the event it does seep out, she says. 

“With Carbfix, they also need a hole in the ground, but it’s different because when they pump the CO2 into the ground it turns into rock,” Pavlova says. “And we don’t have to worry about monitoring or leaking.” 

Additionally, Carfix’s technology has been proven commercially in Europe, and the company has done work with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in Richland, Washington. 

Initially, CarbonQuest deployed similar projects where it injects CO2 into cement mixtures, which are then absorbed, cured, and made into concrete blocks for construction. The company’s first sustainable CO2 customer is a green concrete block manufacturer in Brooklyn, New York. CarbonQuest will continue to pursue this method of storing carbon, however, a challenge with that nascent market is to scale it, Pavlova says. 

Shane Johnson, CEO of CarbonQuest, says the partnership with Carbfix will accelerate the adoption of carbon capture throughout North America. 

“Carfix’s solution is a cost-effective and permanent way to mineralize captured CO2, even for emitters located far from a mineralization hub,” Johnson says in a press release.

In August, CarbonQuest completed its first round of Series A funding, which was reported recently at nearly $36 million. With the funds, the company plans to expand its technology and double its workforce to a staff of about 60 within the next year.