At the end of September 2023, the Swiss climate tech company Neustark, together with the construction and recycling company Heim, opened the first CO2 storage facility in Germany - and even in the EU, according to the company. The facility in Berlin-Marzahn has the capacity to permanently store over 1,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. The CO2 is captured in biogas plants. As the CO2 used is biogenic, the process removes emissions from the atmosphere and creates negative emissions in the process.
The company commissioned a total of twelve such plants in Switzerland and Germany last year. These have a cumulative annual capacity of around 5000 tonnes.
How the process works
How does it work? The CO2 is separated from biogas plants and transported to nearby storage facilities. Here, the CO2 is injected into the granulate of demolition concrete during the usual recycling process. The technology triggers a mineralisation process in which the CO2 is converted into limestone and thus bound to the pores and surface of the granulate. In this way, the CO2 is permanently stored in the demolition concrete and thus removed from the atmosphere. The carbonated demolition concrete granulate can then be used by the recyclers as usual in road construction or for the production of recycled concrete (RC concrete).
Collaboration with several partners
Neustark uses CO2 for the plant in Berlin, which mainly comes from MVV's biowaste fermentation plant in Dresden-Klotzsche. Since 2021, the CO2 produced during the production of biomethane has been captured and liquefied there. Some of the biogenic CO2 will continue to be utilised in internal processes. The surplus quantity of around 1000 tonnes of CO2 per year is purchased by the Munich-based biomethane trading company Landwärme. Neustark in turn transports and removes this CO2 at the storage facility near Heim.
A final but important step at the end of the value chain: the storage service provided generates climate certificates that are sold. In this way, companies can "remove" emissions that are difficult to avoid in addition to their own reduction measures and thus achieve their net-zero targets. Neustark's Carbon Removal customers include Microsoft and UBS.
On its ambitious path to remove one million tonnes of CO2 in 2030 and beyond, Neustark is currently expanding in Europe. In addition to the 12 plants that have been commissioned to date, a further fifteen projects are currently under construction in the DACH region and France. / red