Making Products from Syncarb

There are many different magnesium, calcium and sodium carbonates that could be profitably produced by Syncarb. Which mineral precipitates in the magnesium, calcium or sodium group depends on the prevailing conditions and the only proxy available for the innate strength of these compounds is hardness.

We know that magnesite, aragonite, calcite and vaterite are the toughest but vaterite is metastable and aragonite not commonly precipitated.

Possible Precipitates from Syncarb

Thermodynamic data for calculation ∆ Ho and ∆ Go is from Robie, Richard A., Hemingway, Bruce S., and Fisher, James R. Thermodynamic Properties of Minerals & Related Substances at 298.15K and 1 Bar (105 Pascals) Pressure and at Higher Temperatures. U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1452. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1978.

Target Markets

For sequestration to be economically viable outputs must be sold and there are a number of target markets:

Calcium and magnesium carbonates

The cement and concrete industries:

• Calcium carbonates as inputs of the cement industy for the production of the calcium silicate components alite and belite
• Fine calcium carbonate for improving particle packing of cemementitous components of cement
• Fine magnesium carbonates for improving particle packing and properties such as shrinkage, rheology and durability of cements
• Manufacture of LC3. (a reincarnation of olders cement based on a blend of limestone and calcined clay. LC3 can reduce CO2 emissions by up to 40% and is very similar to natural cements and Rosendale cements and similar cements still made today.
• TecEco cements made with with sustainably calcined rMgO production.

The cement, concrete and stone industries:

• manufactured sands and aggregates of varying sizes and compositions as required for concrete and all other markets such as roads and airports

Soil Fertility:

• Basic or buffering carbonates for acid soil remediation.
• Use of ammonium sulphate and ammonium chloride end of pipe products in Syncarb for alakline soil treatment
• Use of trace element end of pipe products in Syncarb for alakline soil treatment

The filler industry

• Relatively inert powders such as group 2 carbonates have or could have a market as fillers in plastics and resins.

Mining and Processing

• Drilling muds
• Neutralisation of acid mine drainage and tailings. pH adjustment.

Reduction in ocean acidity

• Basic magnesium carbonates in quantity would supplement the erosion of basic rocks which has helped maintained pH levels in seawater which are currently falling as the ocean acidifies.

Medical and Pharmaceutical

• Use as supplements to correct calcium and or magnesium deficiency

Building and construction

• Plaster, acoustic tiles, ceramic tiles, paints adhesives and sealants etc.

Cleaning

• Abrasive cleaning pastes, polishing pastes etc.

Water purification and pH adjustment

Sodium carbonate

The cement and concrete industries:

• Sodium carbonate will activate many blast furnace slags to produce a solid concrete of around 45 mpa.
• Imhotep's Egyptian geopolymer. An exciting way of making stone using calcium carbonate sodium carbonate and waste bitterns.

Industry

• Film making and tanning
• Manufacture of glass, soap and paper
• Manufacture of other sodium compound like borax
• Can be used with bitterns (MgCl2, another waste) to make sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and common salt

Medical and Pharmaceutical

•  Sodium bicarbonate can be directly used as a raw material in the pharmaceutical industry for the treatment of hyperacidity

Mining and Processing

•  Beneficiation, smelting, metal heat treatment

Household

• Softens hard water

Sodium bicarbonate

Cooking

• As a baking and leavening agent

Fire control & pyrotechnics

• Smoke production and fire extinguisher

Medical and Pharmaceutical

• Mild disinfectant and acid neutralisation

Agricultural

• Can inhibit fungal growth

Discussion

Much of the technology to produce product in the inexhaustive list above is well known so the focus on this page is on less well known potentially high volume technologies divided broadly between those that recylce CO2 and those that are new uses.

Replacing Mining Recycling CO2

In 2022 430 million tons [1] of lime which is limestone that has been decarboxylated were produced globally in 2022[2], In the same year the total for magnesium compounds comprising magnesium oxide (caustic-calcined magnesia, dead burned magnesia, and fused magnesia), magnesium hydroxide, and magnesium chloride was 30 million tonnes and most of this is calcined magnesium ores.[3]. Soda ash is sodium carbonate from which sodium bicarbonate is also made and global annual production in 2022 totalled 59 million tonnes. Input substitution by product made in a Syncarb process would result in a significant reduction in atmopheric CO2 because every tonne of recyled CO2 would replace a tonne of produced CO2

There would also be less mining, grinding, fuel and oil used, heavy equipment wearing out etc. etc. Our outputs will become our inputs and this is how it should be. Decarboxylation also takes energy and the ipcc have beta calculation tools for testing [4] My guesstimate is about 1.25 to 1.5 tonnes CO2 per tonne of input resulting 650 to 800 millions tonnes less CO2 produced.

Cement, Concrete and Aggregate

Rather than using limestone from their quarries cement companies would be doing the world a favour by using calcite precipitated by sequestration in brines using their own emissions together with more clays (recycled ground bricks?) to make 'natural' as well as portland cement as their process costs should fall with no mining.Natural cements of all kinds including Rosendale cements include more clay reducing the net CO2 emissions. See Natural & Rosendale Cements

I have also tested the direct addition of nesquehonite to Portland cement since 2013 and have observed no detrimental outcomes and some very positive ones. See Sequestration of CO2 in Brines.

Portland cement concrete is an alkaline environment and such envornments may catalyse the conversion of nesquehonite to magnesite. Other papers say heat and a high CO2 partial pressure speed the process up as one would expect. [1][2]. As Portland cement is desicating as it reacts with water, according to Le Chateliers principal this may help as well. Magnesite which is a stronger mineral and thermodynamically very stable is desireable and as long as there are no molar volume changes and the water lost by nesquehonite and other precursor magnesium carbonates causes more complete hydration of PC the strength is improved. We need resources to further research this.

The cement industry currently add up to 10% ground limestone. It may have a minor useful chemical role but its main role is to improve particle packing which will improve and associated properties like strength. Normal Portland cement concrete can also take up small amounts of nesquehonite and other magnesium carbonates preferable without the added ground limestone improving properties like rate of strength gain, rheology and shrinkage without causing dimensional distress and cracking. There are huge opportunities to replace the ground limestone and sequester CO2 into concrete using calcite, nesquehonite, dipingite hydromagensite etc. made in the Sincarb process using emissions from the concrete industry! According to statista global cement production worldwide amounted to an estimated 4.4 billion tons in 2021 [3] . At an additon of 10% calcite and or nesquehonite from Syncarb the sequestration would total around 440 million tonnes.

Aggregate

Aggregates include sands and stone. After water they are the most used material on the planet. Other people have said concrete is but if you think about it they are wrong. The figure is hard to get a handle on as sand, stone and gravel (aggregates) are ubiquitous. Its in our concretes, under our roads or in road surfaces made of concrete or bound by bitumen. It is in your park path. It is everywhere. It is used in the concrete industry which should consider making it using their own emissions.

The first consideration is the strength of the stone. For most uses high strength stones are not required but nonetheless desireable. For some uses such as road surfaces and high strength concretes a strong stone is required. Calcite and magnesite are the obvious mineal targets and and the most discussed way of producing magnesite and larger crystals of both minerals is at higher tmperatures and a high partial pressure of CO2. [1] [2].

Whatever route taken some agglomeration will be required to achieve useful stone sizes. I have found the easiest way to deliver a lot of stone product of various sizes is to break it up whilst setting. This could be by a purpose designed machine or by using a tractor towing an agricultural implement as the mix cured. The binder for agglomeration is another matter and can be minimalised by careful attention to particle packing. Candidate binders include geopolymer, Imhotep's cement of the pyramids, portland cement, LC3 cement and Tec-Cement. We note that rMgO would probably blend well with LC3 cement powders but are yet to test this.

Microstructure is just as important as the innate strength of the mineral formed and it is possible that output minerals from Syncarb blended with other wastes can be made stronger if mixed with other wastes.

Ancient cement and concrete and Imhotep's Egyptian geopolymer

The history of cement and concrete goes back to at least 10,000 BC and this makes fascinating reading [3] [4].

According to Joseph Davidovits the pyramids were built in situ using a type of 'concrete' invented by Imhotep 4670 to 4689 years ago whereby soft limestone with a high kaolinite content was quarried in the wadi on the south of the Giza Plateau. The limestone was then dissolved in large, Nile-fed pools until it became a watery slurry. Lime (found in the ash of cooking fires) and Natron (also used by the Egyptians in mummification) were mixed in. The pools were then left to evaporate, leaving behind a moist, clay-like mixture. This wet "concrete" would be carried to the construction site where it would be packed into reusable wooden moulds and in a few days would undergo a chemical reaction similar to the curing of concrete to form some of the blocks of the pyramids[4] The reactions, according to Philip Coppens are shown below in an unreferenced diagram [4] also involve Epsom salts or bitterns (MgCl2)

Diagram proposing reactions for the setting of limestone rubble concrete possibly used in the pyramids.[5]

Note that in the above diagram Carnallite is actually KMgCl₃·6(H₂O) and that the reaction between sodium carbonate and magnesium chloride (bitterns - a waste from salt manufacture) mainly produce hydrated and hydroxylated magnesium carbonates minerals which will slowly become magnesite which is a harder mineral.

Sodium carbonate can also react with many blast furnace slags to produce what could be a useful building material.[6 ] We will discuss this more under the Carbonsafe heading on the web page Uses for Carbonates.

There are many hydrated and hydroxylated magnesium carbonates and I will discuss the possibility of adding weaker hydrated and hydroxylated magneisum magneisum carbonates to other wastes and/or sodium carbonate to produce harder tougher minerals. Mabe the ancient Egyptians can teach us something on this!

Soil & Ocean Fertility

The Global Carbon Project (GCP) projects that fossil emissions in 2021 will reach 36.4bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2), only 0.8% below their pre-pandemic high of 36.7GtCO2 in 2019. This is a lot of extra CO2 to get out of the air.

The latest measurements released by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego  show that the atmospheric CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, are now at record levels. The average for March 2021 was 417.14 parts per million (ppm), which is 50% higher than the average for 1750-1800.

We need a huge sync. Much bigger than I have discussed so far. If our degraded & often polluted soils could be reinvigorated, acid and alkaline soils globally made closer to neutral then the amount of land we would need to use for production of food would be less, the quality of the food improved and areas set aside for nature increased. We should investigate the potential of this and I have listed a project to do so as requiring funding.

Rectifying Soil pH

Soil pH affects plant nutrient availability as in the following 3D graph.

Nutrient availability in relation to soil pH [6]

The optimum pH is between 5.5 and 7.5[5] for most plants. To bring low pH acid soils into this range fine limestone, dolomite or magnesite are currently used and could be replaced by fine calcium and magnesium carbonates from syncarb including basic magnesium carbonates. For alkaline soils of high pH, Syncarb end of pipe ammonium sulphate and chloride could be used to bring down the pH.

Global Soil pH Red = acidic soil, Blue = alkaline soil, Black = no data [6]

Given the size of the planet the market for fertilzer could be huge. But wait! The answer is not 42 it is poo. By using green ammonia, preferably from poo so we can all help, at high pH Syncarb can precipitate sodium carbonate significantly removing this ion. In the total process the cations sodium, calcium and magnesium and anions chloride and sulfate are removed attached to the ammonium ion. What's left over is all of plant nutritional value.

Causing the oceans to absorb more CO2

Gaia Engineering is essential given the parlous state of our planet. Billions of tonnes of CO2 could be sequestered by Syncarb and recycled as basic carbonate in the oceans where there are strong ocean currents. Forget enhanced weathering,[7] its nonsense when you realise you can recycle CO2 with Mg and Ca ions attached to counter ocean acidification. Because the ocean is so huge at 1.37 billion cubic kilometers [8] the volume is more than enough for billions of tonnes annually.

Other Saleable Product

Calcium and magnesium carbonates as well as soda ash produced by Syncarb are also commodity minerals and could be sold directly, converted into other saleable magnesium compounds or calcined in our Tec-Kiln we have designed so it operates without releases to make dead burned, caustic and reactive magnesia (rMgO) as well as other calcium and magnesium minerals which are important for bonding materials of the future for many reasons but also because the propagate hydrogen bonding. Good quality useful omposites can be made from a wide range of organic and inorganic wastes using magnsium cements. rMgO is also the basis of all TecEco Cements and they can all be made sustainably because CO2 emissions can be recycled back into processes like syncarb resulting in the precipitation of more carbonates.

If ammonia is used as the base for regulating pH and the precipitations of carbonates then the end of pipe outputs could include ammonium sulfate and ammonioum chloride which are both fertilizers.

Lithium is of high value and could also be seperated but would require considerable onprocessing.

Summary

We have reached critical CO2 levels and engineering the earth’s climate is essential. All carbon dioxide flue gases and even CO2 from the air can be sequestered by calcium, magnesium and sodium ions in desalination waste water or other brines with green ammonia as the pH regulator. They can safely be recycled and sold as stable synthetic carbonates, concretes and composites using the SynCarb process. That is why we call the technology Gaia Engineering.

The SynCarb process utilises waste sources of magnesium ions, such as from bitterns, desalination or oil or gas process water, and combines them with carbon dioxide to produce nesquehonite or other saleable magnesium carbonates The carbonates produced can then be agglomerated with and without other industrial wastes with our cements made in our new much more efficient Teckiln. The manufacture of synthetic carbonates such as aggregate in this way is an example of geomimicry as it mimicks the way nature stores carbon.

The SynCarb technology for making synthetic carbonates is potentially a very profitable solution because it has low capital costs, few process steps and low process energies and unlike other options for cheaply solving the global warming problem being considered everything produced has a market and there are no legacies for future generations to deal with.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), International Energy Agency (IEA), UN and many other international organisations are calling for efficient carbon capture which has so far not been cost effective.  That is, until we announced the SynCarb process.

We offer common sense, good science combined with smart process technology and can deliver a process that can run 24/7 under the control of computers. The plant is flexible however the specific configuration and design of each installation will depend testing and on the waste streams available.

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