The Atmosphere, Restored.

Lime is key industrial material produced from limestone. It is used in everything from the production of building materials and steel to refining sugar and helping to purify drinking water.

Lime cannot be produced without creating carbon dioxide (CO²).  As a result, large amounts of CO² are released into the air each year. Recognising the need to reduce these emissions, Origen is working with the lime industry to develop technologies to create zero-carbon lime. 

This zero-carbon lime can be used to capture point-source emissions from a range of other industries and to remove CO² directly from the atmosphere. 

Lime will naturally react with carbon dioxide, making it an ideal tool for capturing CO² from industrial processes and the atmosphere itself. However, existing lime production processes create millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions – rendering lime ineffective for carbon dioxide removal. Origen has developed a lime kiln – based on a novel calciner technology that is able to separate CO² efficiently during the lime production process.

Limestone (calcium carbonate) is broken down at high temperatures (1000°C) in an oxygen-rich environment to produce zero-carbon lime and pure carbon dioxide. The CO² can then either be sold for industrial uses or stored permanently underground. Our zero-carbon lime can be produced cost-effectively and at scale – both vital to enable widespread adoption for existing lime users. There is also huge potential to deploy zero-carbon lime to clean up other industrial processes and to capture CO² from the atmosphere.

Our technology is building a cleaner future – and will help to clean up the carbon dioxide emissions of our past.