The market
The global carbon market is valued at $52 billion. Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the universe. Its consumption has gradually evolved from bulk carbon black for color pigments and tires ($1,000 per ton), activated carbon for water filters ($2,000 per ton), and carbon fibers for strong textiles and automotive body parts where it can replace steel ($25,000 per ton), to advanced carbon nanotubes for the medical and semiconductor industries, to name just a few ($150,000 per ton). In the future, carbon transformed into graphene, a honeycomb-like, grid-like material one atom thick, which is expected to become a key component of solar cells, electrodes, and transistors, will increase global demand. The production cost of one square centimeter of graphene is still over a million dollars, but by 2050, graphene could be one of the most important and efficient components in industry, made from carbon that is widely available in the atmosphere, known to be in excess and contributing to climate change. The global market for carbon black in 2010 was estimated at $12 billion. The Chinese and Indian markets are experiencing rapid growth of 8 to 10% per year, mainly due to increased car sales. Carbon black is commonly used in tires to improve strength and dissipate heat, thus enhancing the durability of the rubber. Carbon black is also sold as a pigment in photocopiers and printers, as an ultraviolet neutralizer in plastics, for example in blackwater pipes, and, as a high-end application, it is used in radar absorption. Another potential bulk market for carbon is the blending and replacement of certain mineral fertilizers with carbon blacks ($500 per ton), as arable land experiences carbon loss due to industrial agriculture. However, the global market has been characterized by oversupply, largely due to Cabot's expansion in China, Indonesia, Brazil, and Argentina. The largest supplier by volume is the Indian group Aditya Birla, which surpassed Cabot (USA) and Evonik (Germany) through its acquisition of Columbian Chemicals, an American producer, for a combined production capacity of 2 million tons and revenues of approximately $2 billion. Evonik is considering selling its carbon black division to focus on specialty chemicals.
Innovation
Airborne carbon black has become a major environmental concern. When released freely into the air, it is a pollutant commonly found in and around cities. Goodyear successfully replaced carbon black with a biodegradable starch-based polymer supplied by Novamont (see Case 20). However, this has not become a widespread application. Historically, carbon black was sourced from charred bones, dried grape wines, and soot from oil combustion. Modern processing has evolved into large-scale industrial manufacturing using the heaviest petroleum fractions from refineries. However, the largest facility ever built operated for only three years in Montreal, Canada, using natural gas and oil as feedstocks. The primary output was hydrogen, with carbon black as a byproduct. Unfortunately, the high cost of the feedstock (oil or natural gas) made the operation uncompetitive. Per Espen Stoknes studied innovative ways to produce hydrogen and explored numerous alternatives. He met British inventor Phil Risby, who had studied many applications of plasma technologies, including methane fractionation. Per Espen was drawn to the concept of zero-emission mobility, a concept that seemed viable if hydrogen provided the energy. In 2008, they founded GasPlas AS, an Anglo-Norwegian company, and began investigating how to create a carbon sink while using clean energy sources. Spurred by Daimler's decision to test hydrogen cars in Norway, they set about developing a truly renewable supply chain based on biogas. The conversion of organic matter from food waste, animal manure, and even household wastewater into biogas has been successfully improved by Scandinavian Biogas (see case 51). This provides a rich supply of CO2 and methane. The research team at GasPlas AS has designed a revolutionary reactor that converts methane with cold plasma into hydrogen and carbon black. Using inexpensive, standard microwave components, they created a plasma reactor and patented the corresponding components. The GasPlas innovation uses short electromagnetic waves (longer than infrared and shorter than radio waves) to convert methane into its plasma state. Physics has traditionally taught us to work with three states: solid, liquid, and gas. Microwaves convert methane into its fourth state, the plasma state, an ionized gas that breaks carbon and hydrogen bonds for fractions of a second before encouraging these elements to recombine into solid carbon and gaseous hydrogen. Because microwaves couple to electrons and not to the atom, the output temperature is between 200 and 400 degrees Celsius, hence the concept of cold plasma, since thermal plasma requires a temperature ten times higher. This makes the process viable with low energy consumption and cheap materials.
The first cash flow
GasPlas, now headed by Per Espen, quickly realized it possesses a platform technology with the potential to transform the business model, not only for hydrogen production but also for carbon black manufacturing, and many other industries could be impacted. Since methane from landfills and livestock accounts for 12% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the GasPlas team proposes using cold plasma to potentially convert this abundant hydrocarbon into negative energy, carbon, and fertilizer. While plasma has already been used to produce hydrogen, Phil Risby and the GasPlas research team have found a way to operate the new reactor continuously, as well as on demand (not just in batches), at atmospheric pressure (not near a vacuum), and in industrial quantities (not just for very high-level, low-volume applications). Furthermore, even if the reactor could be scaled up, the possibility of building reactors that allow for continuous on-site processing opens a new opportunity for local, competitive businesses. The first reactor designed this fall is capable of producing up to 100 kilograms of hydrogen (H2) and 300 kg of carbon per day.
The opportunity
If five diesel buses were to run for 20 years on hydrogen produced from biogas, then instead of emitting 5,000 tons of CO2, these buses would have used 6,100 tons of greenhouse gases. This puts the power of hydrogen into a whole new light. Operating a small unit connected to a stable source of biogas could produce 200 kg of H2, generating annual revenue of around €650,000. Carbon black can be sold for an unexpected additional profit of around 10%. If stored in building materials or sequestered in the ground, the operation of these buses would actually be carbon negative, meaning it would be profitable to extract the CO2 from the atmosphere. The more hydrogen buses or cars are driven, the less CO2 there will be in the air. While Per Espen envisions numerous applications beyond transportation, such as agricultural waste treatment and the production of key chemicals like methanol and ethylene, his vision is to create an integrated, localized system. To overcome the bottlenecks in hydrogen production, consumption, and availability, and the high cost of storage, he plans a container capable of supplying hydrogen as an on-demand fuel source. Thus, instead of centrally producing hydrogen and then shipping it worldwide, any biogas plant—even on a relatively small scale—would become a revenue stream, generating higher income for waste management while cost-effectively capturing CO2. One of the appeals of this technological platform is that the same hydrogen approach could be applied to the synthesis of nitrogen gas from the air, thereby providing an industrial-grade nitrogen fertilizer for agriculture. The same type of plasma reactor could be developed to produce liquid fuels from gaseous raw materials. The revolutionary application of cold plasma technology offers the opportunity to convert costs into revenue, a key characteristic of the blue economy. This reduces waste-related costs, which are typically covered by taxes, thus providing an additional opportunity for tax reductions. This may be one of the most favorable business climates for fostering entrepreneurship—business models that enable local tax reductions during times of crisis.
