In an interesting development in Scotland, ‘green’ dry ice is to be produced from carbon dioxide captured by Carbon Capture Scotland from biomethane plants across the UK owned by Iona Capital.

The two companies already have such a venture operating at Iona’s Crofthead anaerobic digestion/biogas plant in Dumfries, south-west Scotland, producing dry ice for use in the food industry. Farm waste and crops are the feedstock at the Crofthead plant. By capturing CO₂ from the combustion of biomethane, the process will help to offset emissions from conventional production of dry ice.

As the dry ice will eventually sublimate, the Carbon Capture Scotland/Iona process is perhaps strictly not ‘carbon negative’, but carbon neutral, yet the capture and utilisation will still mean fewer greenhouse gas emissions on an economy scale, given that dry ice is typically produced from ammonia.

Carbon Capture Scotland spoke to this advantage, with director Richard Nimmons stating the agreement “represents a scalable framework for clear, measurable carbon removal that brings us closer to our goal of removing one million [metric] tonnes of CO₂ from the atmosphere per year.”