Twenty-seven teams from six nations have reached the semifinals of a $20 million competition to convert carbon dioxide into useful products, the XPRIZE Foundation announced Monday.
The NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE competition consists of two tracks: one testing developmental technologies on emissions from a coal-fired power plant and one that involves emissions from a natural gas-fired power plant. Twelve teams have qualified in the first track and 21 in the second. Six teams are competing in both tracks.
The list encompasses teams from Canada, China, India, Switzerland, Scotland, and the United States, presenting unique ways to use carbon in valuable products, such as enhanced concrete, biofuels, toothpaste, nanotubes, fish food, and fertilizer, according to an XPRIZE press release.
“The selected semi-finalists show that innovation can come from anywhere, determined by our expert judging panel to represent the most promising and innovative submissions in the competition,” Paul Bunje, principal and senior scientist of the energy and environment group at XPRIZE, said in the release.
The competition has three rounds. Forty-seven teams participated in the first round, submitting a technical and business viability assessment of their project. A panel of judges reviewed the entries and selected the semifinalists.
Round two begins now. The teams will conduct pilot-scale demonstrations of their technologies in a controlled environment of their selection using simulated power plant flue gas. No more than five teams from each track will be announced in December 2017 to proceed to round three; they would split $2.5 million as an interim award.
Round three will continue through February 2020. This round will consist of a demonstration-scale competition, during which teams will have access to two test centers adjacent to existing power plants and must prove their technologies using actual power plant flue gas. Following the close of round three, teams will be scored on CO2 conversion levels and the net value of their product. A grand prize winner in each track will be selected in March 2020, with each receiving $7.5 million.
