The creator of a unique CO2 capture technology based on a biological process is joining forces with the developers of a technology to make use of the captured CO2 in the contest to find the best new uses for the climate change culprit.

Quebec City-based CO2 Solutions Inc. is teaming with Team CERT, a multidisciplinary team of researchers affiliated with the University of Toronto, for a combined entry to the Carbon XPRIZE competition sponsored by U.S. utility NRG and Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA).

The three-round competition, which aims to advance technologies that convert CO2 from a liability into valuable products, has a total prize purse of $20 million. Both teams have already advanced through the first round of the 4.5-year competition, which runs to 2020. The winners in each of two tracks—one focused on testing technologies at a coal power plant and one focused on a natural gas power plant—will be awarded $7.5 million grand prizes.

In addition to continuing with its initial entry in the competition, through which it will demonstrate its process of capture and reuse of CO2 into acetic acid, CO2 Solutions has also been authorized to partner with other contenders offering a CO2 reuse process only. Newly formed combined entries will propose the CO2 Solutions capture process with the reuse process of the partner company.

The announced CO2 Solutions–CERT entry is an example of such a combination. CO2 Solutions and CERT would share equally any prize money that maybe awarded to the joint entry.

Team CERT’s work on addressing the need for carbon-neutral fuel systems has focused on efficient reduction of atmospheric CO2 into usable carbon products for renewable fuels and chemical feedstocks.

The team has developed a technology based on a record performing catalyst to transform CO2 into carbon monoxide (CO). The industrial gas is central to the purification of metals from ores. CO also plays a major role for the bulk production in the chemical industry.

Advances in catalyst design and performance have been achieved both for the anodic oxygen evolution reaction and the cathodic CO2 reduction reaction using nanostructured materials.

Team CERT’s water splitting anode catalyst is made from cheap and abundant earth metals and its CO2 conversion catalyst is based on nanostructured metals synthesized using advanced materials processing techniques. It produces a compact and scalable system using flow cell technology modified from state-of-the-art fuel cells, the team said.

Inspired by nature, CO2 Solutions’ process exploits an enzyme catalyst called carbonic anhydrase, which is responsible for facilitating efficient CO2 transfer during respiration in humans and other living organisms. Touted for use in the oilsands, the technology lowers the cost barrier to carbon capture, sequestration and utilization.