2 March 2010 -- UOP, a unit of Honeywell, was awarded a $1.5 million cooperative agreement from the U.S. Department of Energy for a project to demonstrate technology to capture carbon dioxide and produce algae for use in biofuel and energy production.
The funding will be used to design a demonstration system that will capture carbon dioxide from exhaust stacks at Honeywell's manufacturing facility in Hopewell, Va., Captured CO2 will be delivered to a cultivation system for algae. Algal oil can then be extracted for conversion to biofuels. The algae residual can be converted to pyrolysis oil, which can be burned to generate renewable electricity.
The project, managed by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory, will realize further environmental benefit because wastewater from the manufacturing facility will be used in the algae cultivation system, allowing the algae to consume nitrogen in the wastewater.
Honeywell's Hopewell site produces caprolactam, a material used in the production of nylon, as well as ammonium sulfate, a fertilizer.
