NEXTepisode S01E05: Fabio Ferrari on an integrated approach to carbon management

In the new edition of NEXTepisode, Fabio Ferrari, Head of Circular Carbon and Integrated Solutions at Nextchem, explains why addressing industrial carbon emissions requires a broader perspective than capture alone. With existing technologies, we can use CO2 as a feedstock for urea or methanol, integrate it into industrial processes, or even develop marketable products. With all these options on the table, finding the right solution for each case requires careful assessment and a holistic view of the entire carbon value chain. 

Tune in to discover how integrated carbon management approach can help industry tackle one of its most pressing challenges. 

Learn more about Nextchem's approach to carbon management: https://www.nextchem.com/en/solutions/carbon-management

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:14

All right, welcome everybody to a new edition of next episode, the podcast that talks about the sustainable technology solutions. Today we are joined by Fabio Frari. Welcome Fabio. Thank you. Welcome. You are the head of circular carbon and integrated solutions. Yeah, correct. That's that's a that's a mouthful. Uh you are a chemical engineer by background?

SPEAKER_03 0:38

Yes, I am. I studied here in Milan and I'm also an MBA in the Bocconi uh Business School.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

And a lot of experience in the chemical industry, then I assume. Correct. I had more than 20 years. I worked first as an APC contractor. And then I moved to licensing, doing all the stuff connected to Singas production and chemicals production. And then I decided to join NASCAM just for this challenge about CO2 management. That seems something like a very end of the process, but it's something that is very important because this is interconnecting different processes and provide solutions to problem that in any case we have to solve.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Okay, so uh the the challenge is what drives you to Nextcam.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

Yeah, challenge is uh for sure that and then the technical uh possibility to see many different technologies. In Nextcam, we have so many. So even a small challenge like that becomes something like a very good experience to see all the different uh prospects in the company.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Okay, and today we're going to talk about uh carbon management. Um I think if you look at of course carbon management is uh the big issue of this century. Uh, how to how to how to manage uh greenhouse gas emissions? Uh but I think carbon in the in that's in the in the air, air what we breathe in every day is like I looked it up, it's 0.04%.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

Well, let me say that CO2 is uh what really brings life to the uh that's a real source of that. Without uh CO2, we will not have uh something the normal conventional life, and then there's been an evolution that the impact of human activities have been now changing the concentration of CO2. So we want to be uh compensated on that somehow with technology in order to avoid that our industries are somehow affecting the general climate change that might be changed happening.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Okay, so then um I think carbon management or carbon capture, I think is a thing of the past, I think already decades.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

I think the first technologies are are a bit older and then yeah, can we capture let me say CO2 by itself is something that coming from uh the normal combustion processes in other processes so as every time we say, even if it's a little technical, entropy is the reason why CO2 is uh emitted by the processes. And in the past, the CO2 has been, in any case, a possible molecule that can be used, for example, for producing urea. So it was something, an element of attention in the past for a different reason. Uh so solutions have been implemented also in the past in order to try to capture CO2 with a different as a feedstock. As a feedstock, or in the case to remove that from sinkers, for example, pre-combustion in ammonia plants has always been seen something like a solution to remove CO2 from the sinkers to produce then something like ammonia, for example. Okay, and then in the process you can use, as I was saying, CO2 for producing urea. That's fine. And in the past, that was a real challenge to capture CO2 in order to use it. Now the quantity of CO2 is so big in the industry that we have to implement solution in order to try to remove this concentration in the air. So some solution can be very complicated, like direct air capture. So that means that you try to directly take the CO2 from the air and then uh convert it to use it or somewhere else.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

So carbon management, I think the the the direct air capture is capturing the 0.04% out of the normal air and um do something with that either.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

Um yeah, that's the point. This is something like more an environmental challenge, which is uh, let me say not really our focus because uh in SCAM the real idea is to try to manage the CO2 in the processes we have and then to find solution in order to manage the same. That's why it's no more only carbon capture by itself, but it's carbon management. That means uh the possibility to manage all the value change of the production, including also the emission, and in that case, of course, the CO2 is part of that. Is it viewing carbon as a something that has value? It can be. It can be depends on the okay. Let me say the CO2 we are actually emitting in this city is very industry is very high. So the point is that we cannot imagine to convert all the CO2, but somehow we can try to find a solution in order to limit the quantity we are emitting, maybe valorizing part of it in order to compensate or economically in order to make the project viable and to have a solution for the client to implement mitigating the impact of implementing something that is somehow expensive, like AboCapture is.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Okay. So carbon capture, I think, uh uh is a very high, uh very expensive, uh, probably very energy intensive. What are good ways to capture slash manage carbon? How do you do that? Probably depends on the process where you're capturing it from.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

Yeah, it depends from the process. Uh the real advantage is that uh in NASCAM we are so competent, we have so large experience in doing such type of processes for different reasons in the past. As I was saying to, for example, capture the CO2 in order to reuse it in ammonia in urea plant. The idea is to take all those experiences we have had in the past and to really implement the same, to try to optimize the system itself. So when you have something that is uh mandatory for environmental reasons, the possibility to optimize the system, to find solutions that can be used and integrated inside the process itself, mitigating the impact for the client is where we can really play our role. Okay. And this is coming because just to nobody, most of the people does not know that Myer Group has about 30% of the market share of built post-combustion carbon capture plants. Okay. Which is really something astonishing if you think about that. That means that one-third of all the CO2 that is capturing post-combustion, it is coming from Myer Group.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

Well, I I also did not know that. So, but then how let's let's focus on that first. Post-combustion. How does that work? Something is burned inside a reactor, depends on the process then.

SPEAKER_03 6:37

Yeah, let me say typically is uh in all the processes, most of the processes we have, there is somehow some combustion somewhere. So then we have some flue gas that is emitted to the atmosphere, and around 8 to 15 percent of these flue gas is uh CO2 by itself. The point is that uh in post-combustion, because it's already combusted and it is a particular flue gas, it's very rich in oxygen, so it's much more complicated to manage that. So, for example, to make a comparison, even if it be a little technical, pre-combustion are normally cleaning up CO2 from sinkas, so there is no oxygen. So it's much more lean and simple. You are at high pressure, so high partial pressure means a higher possibility to be captured, easier to be done, and lower energy to then restore the solution that you're using in case it's an aminic type. In post-combustion, you are low pressure, high concentration of oxygen, and very large quantities of glucose, so a very high stream of uh that you have to treat. The possibility to implement solution like aminic solutions is to wash that stream to use uh the absorption of the aminic solution to capture the CO2 molecule, then all the rest, like nitrogen and oxygen and all the other components, would be released to the atmosphere, but it will be clean.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Okay, so how how does that work? You said you say the the amine solution. Um that's like a a sponge. Or how can you can you try to try to explain this for a non-technical person?

SPEAKER_03 8:08

Let's let me say is um somehow is like when you're in your blood, you're taking the molecules uh with the um the what you have inside the blood in order to move that around. It's a contact between a gaseous phase and a liquid phase. The liquid phase is the amine, and then there is this chemisorption process where the CO2 molecule is attached to the amine, yeah, and it chemisor that, and then this uh fluid, which is a liquid form, is going away, enriched by the by the CO2, and then the gaseous of the rest, which is not uh let me say interacting with the liquid, is going to the atmosphere.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

If uh the comparison that comes to my mind in let's say every in a household situation, is it like uh div dissolving some sugar in your tea?

SPEAKER_03 8:55

Oh well, it's not exactly the same because this one is a sol is a different type of solution, but uh it's like uh really uh you have those amine systems that chemically is bonding selectively only on the CO2. Okay, so is uh identifying the CO2 in the system, let me say it's taking it and then is bringing away it from somewhere else. And then uh the energetic impact of that is that then you you would like to have a loop, so to recycle to recycle back this amino solution, you need to remove the the CO2 from the solution. To do so, you need to eat up, and that is where the impact in terms of energy comes from those types of solutions. So you have to eat up, you say you strip it, so you go with that temperature. The CO2 is removed, separated from the solution. The solution is now clean, recycled back, but then you have the CO2 that is pure enough to be sent downstream.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Okay, and to what let's say we started with the 0.04 percent in general air, then how how pure is that stream?

SPEAKER_03 9:55

Okay, the then when you have one side you have nitrogen, which is uh not affecting nothing against cleaned up. The CO2 then is very concentrated, it is something like can be also 99%. Okay, it might be containing uh some oxygen, some uh water, of course, because uh you're washing with the solution, but then depending on the process, you decide you can uh somehow purify that. And again, we have our experience in order to be able to purify those to reach the highest purities to be fed for processes like urea, for methanol production, or in some cases just to uh put them in a pipeline, as we did in Casabo-Ceti project, where we were capturing the CO2 for a very complex stream that is was a post from a gas turbine, and then we need to clean it up to send in a pipeline to be sequestrated in the Mediterranean Sea. And this has been the first project in Italy doing so to sequestrate CO2 after a post-combustion catch. But then you send it off as a gas or is it a liquid then? In this case it's a gas. Okay, and this is an alternative we can again provide to clients because uh if you have a pipeline and you have the possibility to diet to send it somewhere and you are going to use it or sequestrate, you can keep it in gases form, you just need to qualify that's to reach a purity for that. If you have instead a problem of logistics, because maybe the site for sequestration is very far abroad, or do you have some off-takers, some user stuff very far, to transpose to in gas form is much more complicated. It's a matter of volume. So if you have a very large gas, you need a lot of volume to move it. Liquid form is much more small in terms of one. So a solution can be to liquefy that. And again, this is providing an opportunity for the company because we have this technical problem. How can we provide a solution for the client for liquefying CO2? If you go in conventional market, normally the quantity is very limited, only for making some gaseous um um water with uh with the gas, you can then liquefy that uh in small capacities and you have some solutions that are tailored for that. But if you go very large, and we are speaking about industrial plants, yeah, where it might be five, seven, ten times the conventional uh liquefaction units, you need to implement different solutions in order to achieve that target and optimize, of course, uh the capex and the opex of the system. And in the past, we discovered that in my group, in the SCAMD, we have a strong experience in cryogenic solutions. Okay. So the idea has been why not implementing our own technology in order to make liquefaction? And then we have this new technology which is called NXClick, that is liquefying the CO2 for large capacities, using CO2 itself as a refrigerant. Because in the past, maybe not technical people maybe not knowing that. But instead of using very complex hydrocarbons for making the freegeries to make cold, you were using CO2. And it was less efficient. You're using CO2 to cool CO2. In our technology, yes. In the past we were using CO2 just to cool other systems, but then comes some hydrocarbon that will be much more efficient in some cases. But if you don't want to use hydrocarbons in your plant, because maybe you don't have it, you don't want to purchase it. You have already CO2? Why not use the characteristic of the CO2 itself, the thermodynamic of the system in order to use it to cool it? And this is our technology that is providing this opportunity to reuse the system, which will be much more lean in terms of uh complexity, and also having the possibility to achieve the possibility to have the economy of scale for very large plants, overcoming all those limits from the past.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

So let me recap a bit. You mentioned very briefly annex click, it's a liquefaction that uses the hydro uh hydrocarbons to cool down.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

No, it's not using hydrocarbons. Okay, yeah, so as a refrigerant. Yeah, he's using CO2 itself, so very technical, but you compress CO2, you flash it, you have some cold, you use it to cool it down, and then at the very end you have a part of that that would be liquid, you can offtake and manage it and into boats, to trains, to move it far away where the place of the industry is. Um and this stream of opportunity does not uh let me say close the opportunity to go for other technology. So we can couple that one with the absorption carbo capture that means post-combustion or pre-combustion, but can also use it for revamping where you have some processor where you have CO2 and you want to move it somewhere else. You can think about in future that would be needed to collect all those CO2 that will be captured somewhere and then move them, uh, those uh streams somewhere else. And this is the hubs in the future that will be present in order to move CO2 water around.

SPEAKER_02 14:47

It sounds a bit like you're creating a uh no, I think there's a a let's say water as a feedstock, but now also CO2 more as a feedstock as a something that has value uh in location A, maybe not so much in location B. And how do you uh transport the value? How do you make it efficient? How do you how do you set it? Is that a correct assumption?

SPEAKER_03 15:11

Somehow I see. Yeah, let me say CO2 is very large in quantity, but as I was saying before, part of that can be reused. You can use it for an answer to recovery, so you can send it an underground in order to push uh on topics. You can use it to convert it to methanol, for example, in the future, you can use it again for making urea, uh, you can use uh in some cases also for uh pharmaceutical uh environment for food uh uh grade. So it can be partially also a value. It is maybe not totally, of course. So there will be some solution for sequestration for sure, but somehow we can let me say make it something that can be somehow managed. That's the reason why the CO2 management is no more CO2 captured by itself.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

So is that are there particular because there are many, I think uh the let's say the typical hard-to-abate sectors is steel, of course, fertilizer, uh cement industry. Does it matter where it comes from or where you use it, or you you can be adaptive to fit whatever a source is?

SPEAKER_03 16:14

We can be let me see the the real point about carbon management is that you need to tailor the solution for each industry. So, for example, we were mentioning now the case of for conventional absorption technologies that are, let me say, very useful for very low concentration of CO2 in the flue gas stream. But if you think, for example, of cases in the industry where the concentration is much more higher, and maybe you do not have any spare heat you can use for a generated solution. That is where you can implement different solutions. No more absorption can be cryogenic solution without liquefying at the very end, but that using the cryogenic properties of CO2 to be condensed and separated from the rest of the stream.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Okay, that that's that's quite a lot of information. So the cryogenic you cool it down to make it a liquid.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

Yeah, so for example, imagine you have uh a very large stream of uh of gas with many different molecules, yes, and uh the only one that is going to condense is CO2. So if you put it down the temperature, the CO2 first you have to remove water, then the CO2 starts to condense, and then once it's condensing, you are separating it for so you move the temperature towards the condensing point of that specific gas, in this case CO2, and then it becomes a liquid, you can take it out and take it out, and the rest is clean for the very same reason. Of course, you cannot do that uh let's say simply. You have to make some additional implementation. This is where our technology that is called an X cryocool, it is implementing the solution. Why I'm saying that? Because the point is we do not have a single solution for all. We have multiple solutions, many different options. You can select and decide, or we can agree with the client to assess their situation and try to tell you the solution for CO2 removal. That's the point. And then this then also manage the logistic of that. The real point is that it would be an end-to-end solution. So we can we have all the experience of KT for steam reformer, for example. We can attach our systems to the existing asset. So, for example, a stack where the flue gas is going away. And we have the competence to ensure that there is no impact in the existing asset. Then we can provide any solution depending on the case, tailor the same for the client, recovering the heat if necessary, electrify, we don't have it available, and then also delivering the CO2 at the condition the client is willing to have, or the off-taker is able to take it. So it can be liquid form, in gaseous form, purified as much as possible. How energy intense is all of this? Well, it is true that for doing so is not for free. You need to spend some energy, whether it is available, spirit, or you have to have electricity with and so. The real point is that, of course, that's why CO2 management, the possibility of partially reutilized that would be mitigating in this impact in terms of CAPEX that you have to put and opex you have to spend in order to make the system work. The real point is that for sure in the future nobody's willing to have a totally uncarbonized system, so some solution should be implemented. So when you are in the direction to be removing this C2 to find solution or that, you need to try to mitigate that, optimize the system, minimize the capex, minimize the opex, and provide a solution that is already complete enough to make the client sure that there's no effect before and there's no impact on saying.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Okay, and and I can imagine that because there's this cost, uh, CapEx and or OPEX. To what extent is this pushed by regulators? Because there's there's the carbon management, uh carbon border adjustment mechanism. I love the word. Yeah, C BAM is just so simple to see. Uh but add those type of I think mostly European, but I think other uh regions in the world are uh following a similar approach and not everybody at the same pace. But um, is this the future? Is the regulation needed in order to make this work?

SPEAKER_03 20:15

Yes, for sure. The regulation is important in order to have something like a common benchmark for everybody to be playing the same rules. My point of view, and I believe the point of view of everybody, is that in any case, as I was saying, we need to implement a solution for carbon capture because we cannot continue to emit as we are doing now. The point like in the past, we were also emitting some uh pollutants that now we are normally removing. We are thinking about uh the cars as well to try to minimize the impact of this pollution. CO2 is part of that. So solution will be implemented. It's a matter of decide how fast going in the direction of decarbonizing, increasing. Maybe not being dogmastic in saying that it should be totally green immediately, because you need steps in order to implement that.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

It's a transition.

SPEAKER_03 21:04

Yeah, exactly. It is a transition. So you cannot say tomorrow you have to totally decarbonize, would be not be it you are immediately affecting the production. So everybody would be not willing to implement. So if you make something like a virtuals system, so like the one of C Benz you were mentioning, it's very good from my point of view because you are stating that in Europe we have decided by definition that we are not accepting anything that will not be somehow decarbonized. And this is changing the mindset not only internally in the market, but also outside. So you may think that in Ch in India, for example, they are thinking they are starting to think to find solutions somehow because if they are willing to sell products to Europe, they need to implement some solution. And the mindset is changing by itself. Nobody's now, for example, would not be willing still to emit uh, I don't know, some H2S, which is very critical for uh acid rain. Nobody is willing. Willing to I don't know, buy products that are not headache enough. Nobody's willing to buy products that are not green in the sense that they are somehow taking care about the environment.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Yeah, it needs to be part of the consideration.

SPEAKER_03 22:13

Correct. So in future, you need to be, of course, providing solutions. We have them. We need to have a good pace for implementing so a reasonable one. And then provide a general statement. This is the direction where we are going.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

What I think I hear you say is that technology is here. We just have to make it work.

SPEAKER_03 22:34

Technology is here, we need to decide that we are willing to implement that. Okay. Like as I said, if you think about the 70s, let's say our industry was not very environmental friendly. We were emitting emitting everything. Nobody was putting something like the SCR on the top of the stack to remove all the pollutants there. Now it's something like a regulatory mandatory mandatory requirement. So you have to implement that. Now the point is that we don't have this necessity to go so fast in order to implement that, considering the captex intensity of the system itself. But in any case, we need to provide the reliability of the system in the economy itself to ensure to the producers that they have to go in this direction. Then we have in the scam enough experience to demonstrate that technology is already available. We are able to guarantee that we can proceed in doing the processes and the projects, implementing them without any impact in the process itself and in the upstream asset. And then to be minimizing in terms of OPEX and CAPEX, the system itself.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

So it's basically the thing that's going to really push this is just carbon pricing.

SPEAKER_03 23:53

Yeah. It should be a general statement of this direction. The rule should be clarified for everybody, not only, let me say, making very uh strict rules in Europe, but outside Europe, nobody cares. This is something or the complexity of the system somehow is also how the incentives have works. In Europe we have a system, in Denmark we have another one. In UK, we have another one. So to navigate through this, uh, of course, it becomes something like complicated. We need to have something like a very simple statement. This is the general way to go. We need to find solutions. Let's implement them. Maybe project by project, uh country by country. But in any case, we have this direction. So even if I've seen a lot of projects that are moving forward because everybody's waiting the other to see, because they don't want to be the first movers in most of the cases, sooner or later we come to a point where we do need to have them. And the advantage of NASCAM is that we have already a heritage on that. We are playing our role actually, and we are ready for the future when everybody would be willing to do so.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

Yeah, I think then also you have the a lot of different other technologies where you can integrate with, right? So the the integrated approach probably is beneficial there as well.

SPEAKER_03 25:06

Correct. That's why having so many technologies, so many companies, we can be somehow always find a solution that is optimal for the specific case. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

All right. Any um, let's say final thoughts on this topic?

SPEAKER_03 25:19

Where where do you think this is uh this where you've already given a flavor of where this is heading towards, but is there any breakthrough that you think if this happens, then well, uh let me say up to now, for sure, my point of view is that uh we need to find a solution for the electricity um problem that we have now. Some projects are now stopped by the electricity availability. So the real point is that we need to be much more uh let me say optimizing our grid because electricity is for sure one of the elements with which you can somehow allow for the decarbonization. So let me say as soon as we are burning something, there will be some CO2. So to minimize the burning, you need to have so much more electricity and should be much more green as much as possible. So we need to find those types of solutions. And once we have, let me say, high availability of uh electricity, we can be implementing much more projects for electrifying parts of the processes to produce some hydrogen for converting CO2 back to something else, like SAF, like methanol. And all those will be providing much more wider opportunity in terms of decarbonization. Okay, so the future is electric. Uh somehow for sure, yes. We'll not be totally electric. This is let you say, uh, again, not to be dogmatic. Electricity is for sure a very good route in order to implement more decarbonization, also in processes where maybe electricity cannot be fully implemented. So we should not be saying only electric, otherwise, we'll be too much. But a good balance in between different technology, always in the direction to reduce or remove the CO2 carbon footprint. This is the solution from my point of view. It's a true energy transition.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Yeah, exactly. Thank you. Thank you so much for your insights. And also a big uh thanks for all our listeners. Uh, if you like this type of content, uh please subscribe to uh well where whatever platform you are listening to this podcast on. Uh we are on uh YouTube, on Spotify, on uh Google Podcast, Apple Podcasts. So um I hope you tune in to the next episode as well. Thank you so much. Thank you.