Decarbonising the world's diesel generators: Kapture

Why Melbourne?

I was born in Melbourne. It’s always felt like somewhere I wanted to make my mark and increasingly, that feels like making a genuine difference to climate change through business. Melbourne is a very engaging place with a capacity to connect me with like-minded individuals and organisations.

Challenge

When it comes to capturing carbon emissions, most conventional technologies focus on large-scale emitters like coal-fired power plants. They overlook smaller-scale emitters like commercial diesel generators, even though there are more than 120 millions of them around the world pumping out emissions equivalent to more than 4,000 coal fired power plants spread across several million sites.  

Add to this, a general reluctance to switch generators off. This is because in many places they are a vital backup to unreliable mains power sources. In some cases, entire countries run on diesel generators. 

Solution

Kapture has developed cost-effective technology that captures carbon emissions from diesel generators. It uses minimal energy to capture and store the CO2, which puts its economic value in line with carbon credits. One of the key benefits is the process has a positive lifecycle, which means the overall environmental impact of the carbon capture process, from its inception to its completion, is favourable.  

The hardware retrofits to the exhaust of any commercial-sized generator running on diesel or biodiesel. Emissions are captured by a non-toxic, non-hazardous solvent and the by-product can be used as a filler or replace sand in concrete to lock away CO2. 

During its proof of concept process, completed in December 2023, the device captured 45% of CO2 emissions. Kapture has set its sights on capturing more than 70% in the next product development phase. The technology has now been validated by an independent third party. 

Result

Kapture’s technology differs from conventional carbon capture technologies in ways that add real value for business. From a revenue generation perspective, Kapture intends to sell the byproduct captured from emissions and share profits with customers. 

At the operational level, its technology uses less than 8% energy to capture and store CO2. By contrast, conventional carbon capture technology uses up to 45% of a generator’s power or requires an additional power source. It also causes significant back pressure, which effectively stifles the generator. Combined, these two factors can almost double fuel consumption. 

Beyond high capital cost, energy consumption and pressure issues, other carbon capture technologies face additional problems including safety concerns associated with cryogenic storage of CO2 and the toxic nature of amine-based solvents, which also present regulatory hurdles.  

To date, Kapture has secured paid pilots with the largest energy companies in the world and is moving to customer pilots later this year. Considering how many industries rely on diesel generators – every sector from mining, manufacturing, oil and gas, health and hospitality to TV production and outdoor festivals, plus remote communities and islands – Kapture’s market is vast. 

“We have made carbon capture affordable” 

- Raj Bagri