If you want to save the world through carbon dioxide capture, you have to brave hi-tech’s “Valley of Death.”
To do that, you need a killer idea that leads to a game-changing innovation. And Burnaby-based Inventys has just that.
Svante (Inventys Thermal Technologies) has developed the world’s first commercially available post-combustion CO2 capture process that uses structured adsorbents. Instead of using a liquid, chemical-based process that creates toxic waste by-products, Svante’s VeloxoTherm process uses unique filters akin to a giant vacuum cleaner housed inside a structure similar to a rotary air pre-heater.
To capture the CO2, which is often very diluted within a huge volume of gas, Inventys has created a collection system that’s just 10 metres by 50 metres on the outside. But inside, it’s as big as all outdoors.
“In that small machine, we have the equivalent of the surface area of 1.5 times the size of Vancouver Island,” says Claude Letourneau, Svante President and CEO. “That’s cool, eh?”
