Carba is an innovative cleantech company leading the charge in carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solutions.
Carba does this by utilizing nature’s low-value biomass waste which through photosynthesis has removed CO2 from the atmosphere. Carba’s proprietary low-temperature pyrolysis
reactors rapidly and efficiently convert wood and other low-moisture plant waste into a stable solid carbon. Their decentralized mobile reactors and solid carbon burial ensure carbon permanence for thousands of years. Essentially, Carba is reverse coal mining, putting solid carbon back underground. In the future, Carba will also be able to deliver char for the creation of char-based products such as carbon black in steel, aggregate fill in concrete, and others. Carba was founded in 2022 in Minneapolis, MN.
Innovators Network Partners
The City of Saint Paul has selected Carba as a cohort partner. The project is exploring the potential of processing city-produced biomass for sequestration or other practical uses and will focus on meeting the City’s climate goals.
About the Technology
Carba has developed a process and designed and built proprietary CO2 removal reactors that will change high-quality removal for years. The solution focuses on sucking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and permanently storing the carbon underground in the form of a solid char. Carba has developed a process to bury solid carbon and thereby protect the carbon from all the degradation mechanisms that occur on the surface. This increases the permanence of char to thousands of years. It is also verifiable, and samples can be taken at any frequency.
Carba’s reactor creates a solid, inert carbon that mimics the process of coal formation 300 million years ago and puts solid carbon back underground. Their solid char has a high potential for scale, low cost, and safety. The reactors were designed to give high yields of solid carbon per tonne, with exceptional efficiency and scalability. In designing our technology, we realize that the majority of research to this point, and thus the majority of reactors out there, were designed for high-temperature pyrolysis, where cracking reactions dominate. Carba saw a need for reactors that were genuinely mobile, modular, and easy to operate. The first reactor seeks to demonstrate the following through monitoring, measuring, and testing Carba’s differentiators and value propositions, including:
- Low temperature i.e., Ideal pyrolysis temperature by feedstock type
- Scalable features
- Faster heating rates
- Throughput
- More uniform product
- Material handling best practices
- Heat recovery and buffering
- High carbon yield improves the economics of biomass utilization
- Industry-leading solid yields lead to the most efficient use of biomass resources for burial.