Carbon Direct, Arca partner to bring industrial mineralization tech to market

Carbon Direct and Arca have announced a new collaboration to bring Arca’s proprietary Industrial Mineralization (IMin) carbon dioxide removal (CDR) credits to market.  

Arca’s technology is the first field‑scale system to accelerate carbon mineralization in mine waste, aiming to turn a major industry challenge into a scalable CDR solution, the company said. 

The technology has already attracted the attention of major buyers, including Frontier, who provided an early prepurchase agreement, and Microsoft, who entered a 10-year CDR offtake agreement with Arca for nearly 300,000 tonnes. 

The mining industry generates billions of tonnes of alkaline rock waste annually, requiring environmental management. At this scale, the industry also presents a substantial opportunity to remove CO2. 

Arca’s CDR pathway, known as Industrial Mineralization (IMin), deploys proprietary techniques that accelerate carbon mineralization in alkaline rock waste from heavy industries like mining and steelmaking. This pathway leverages industrial expertise and infrastructure to durably store CO₂ as stable minerals for over 10,000 years, making this a high-quality scalable CDR solution, it said. 

Arca says IMin offers a new paradigm for mining: one that would have improved economics and the potential for important environmental co-benefits such as tailings stabilization.  

The company said it has validated the technology under real-world operating conditions and is generating data to support further development, with the potential to remove millions of tonnes of CO₂ over the coming decade.  

After completing an 18-month pilot in partnership with BHP that removed net CO₂ at high efficiency at an active mining site in Australia, Arca is now laying groundwork to deploy the technology at additional locations.  

In Western Australia, Arca partnered with the Tjiwarl Aboriginal Corporation to develop projects in the Goldfields region.   

Carbon Direct will serve as co-developer with Arca on future IMin projects, contributing scientific expertise and carbon market knowledge to deliver credits with the highest standards for durability, measurement, and verification, Arca said.  

“We’re proud to collaborate with Arca to co-develop this unique solution that transforms one of the mining sector’s biggest environmental challenges into real climate action,” Carbon Direct’s vice president of supply Greg FitzGerald said in a news release.  

“Arca’s Industrial Mineralization pathway accelerates a natural process that would otherwise take thousands of years, turning mining waste from a liability into a climate asset.” 

With 16.5 billion tonnes of suitable legacy mining waste globally and 3 billion tonnes produced annually, Arca says its technology can scale alongside mining operations worldwide.