HYCO1 and Kansas Ethanol work on world’s largest biogenic CO2 utilization facility

Daniela Castillo Monagas

HYCO1, Inc. has entered into a 20-year carbon dioxide supply agreement with Kansas Ethanol for the planned construction of the world’s largest biogenic carbon dioxide utilization facility, Green Carbon Synthetics Kansas, LLC. 

HYCO1 is a Texas based technology company that has created a disruptive CO2 conversion catalyst and related low-cost CO2 process technology.  HYCO1 CUBE™ Technology (Carbon Utilization, Best Efficiency) cost-effectively utilizes carbon dioxide and various methane source feedstocks to create low-cost, low-carbon chemical grade syngas in a single pass. The syngas produced is used to produce low carbon intensity (CI) downstream products.   

HYCO1 technology not only lowers the resultant carbon score of the downstream products by 50% to 100% but does so at a competitive cost compared to fossil feedstock derived products and without the requirement of incentives like many other technologies. HYCO1 technology enables green syngas to be used for making products such as hydrogen, synthetic base oils, low-carbon jet fuels, green methanol, and many others. The new HYCO1 project to be co-located with Kansas Ethanol will utilize all of their 800 tons per day of CO2 to produce approximately 60 million gallons per year of low-carbon and zero-carbon products. 

Kurt Dieker, Chief Development Officer, and Co-founder of HYCO1, stated “HYCO1 is excited to announce this innovative, next generation project and to collaborate with the Kansas Ethanol team, which runs one of the most advanced ethanol production facilities in the country.  I have worked with the Kansas Ethanol team for the last fifteen years, including my tenure as Director of Technology Strategy at ICM, Inc., the world’s largest ethanol technology provider.” Dieker continued “While there are many paths that an ethanol facility can take to improve sustainability and margins, ranging from additional energy efficiencies to protein separation, in my opinion CO2 utilization represents the leading value-added step for an ethanol production facility.”  Lastly, “As a native Kansan, I am especially proud to be able to build the first of many HYCO1 Carbon Negative, Planet Positive™ facilities starting with this flagship project in Kansas.”

Mike Chisam, CEO of Kansas Ethanol, said of the project, “Although most ethanol producers are considering or pursuing underground carbon sequestration in our industry to decarbonize, we believe that carbon utilization, which supports a circular carbon economy, represents the best use of our CO2, and positions us more competitively in the market. Value added products made from CO2 that displace fossil derived products represents a win for us at Kansas Ethanol, a win for the U.S. Ethanol Sector, and a win for the global environment. We are looking forward to the construction of the HYCO1-based Green Carbon Synthetics Kansas, LLC facility next to ours. The co-location benefits: carbon dioxide utilization, natural gas offset through waste heat steam production, and additional electricity offsets will position our facility as a world leader of low-carbon ethanol resulting in significant shared savings.” Chisam also noted “HYCO1’s carbon utilization technology enables us to sustainably produce all products, even if, or when, government support incentives are no longer available. That is incredibly important to us.”

TAGGED:
Share This Article