Turning carbon dioxide into baking soda

A new plant is capturing carbon dioxide and purifying it into a food and pharmaceutical grade raw material

Spotted: Sodium bicarbonate, known colloquially as ‘baking soda’, has a diverse range of uses and is found in domestic kitchens all over the world. Now, one of Europe’s largest producers of the common ingredient, Tata Chemicals Europe (TCE), is producing it in an innovative and environmentally friendly way.

The company has just finished constructing the UK’s first industrial-scale carbon capture and usage plant. The £20 million facility will capture 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year from energy emissions. This CO2 will then be purified to food and pharmaceutical grade using a patented process that produces a raw material that will be used to make baking soda. The sodium bicarbonate will be exported to over 60 countries, and much of it will be used in haemodialysis to treat people living with kidney disease.

The plant will reduce TCE’s carbon emissions by 10 per cent, and the CO2 captured will be equivalent to taking 20,000 cars off the road. “The completion of the carbon capture and utilisation demonstration plant enables us to reduce our carbon emissions, whilst securing our supply of high purity carbon dioxide,” explains TCE’s managing Director Martin Ashcroft.

Carbon capture is an important area of innovation and Springwise has recently spotted a carbon capture solvent for the cement industry, a device that captures CO2 from car exhausts, and technology that captures CO2 from the air for use by greenhouse growers. 

Written By: Matthew Hempstead