Hydrogen

Mote plans biomass-to-hydrogen plant in California

Climatetech company Mote said it will build a facility in California to convert wood waste into hydrogen fuel while also capturing, using, and sequestering carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that result from its process.

Engineering work on the facility is underway, and Mote said it expects to produce around 7 million kilograms of hydrogen and remove 150,000 metric tons of CO2 from the air annually. The company said it could start production in 2024.

Through its process, biomass is heated in a limited-oxygen environment to above 1500°F, converting it to a mixture of gases. In a series of operations, the mixture is reacted, separated, and purified into hydrogen for sale as a transportation fuel and CO2 for storage. The remaining ash is sold as a fertilizer additive.

Mote said it is in talks with CarbonCure Technologies on the potential of permanently storing its CO2 in concrete using CarbonCure’s carbon removal technology, which is used in CO2 mineralization systems at concrete plants.

Engineering firm Fluor will support integrating equipment into the facility. And SunGas Renewables, a unit of GTI International, signed an Engineering Services Agreement to provide its gasification systems to the Mote California Central Valley Project.

Components for Mote’s process have been commercially operating in other industries, and are being scaled with the aim of reducing carbon at a lower cost than other carbon removal approaches.

Earlier this year, Mote was selected to be part of Rice University’s Clean Energy Accelerator. It closed a seed funding round this past fall with support from Preston-Werner Ventures, Counteract, and investor Joffre Baker.

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