Dr. Garrett Boudinot, the CEO and Founder of Vycarb, is a climate scientist and carbon chemist pioneering water-based carbon capture and permanent CO₂ storage. With a research background in ocean carbon cycles and carbon removal at Cornell University, he brings strong scientific, technical and industry expertise to scaling innovative CCS solutions for hard-to-abate sectors.
In an interview for “Sustainability & Recycling: Aluminium's Dual Commitment” e-Magazine, Boudinot explores how Vycarb’s full-stack, water-driven carbon capture technology offers a low-purity CO₂ solution tailored for aluminium’s complex value chain. He further highlights deployment opportunities across smelting, refining and maritime logistics, along with insights on decarbonisation challenges, adoption barriers, sector incentives and the critical need for new technologies to meet 2030 and 2050 climate goals.
AL Circle: Could you give us an overview of Vycarb’s carbon removal technology, highlighting its key features and how it differs from other solutions available in the market?
Dr Garrett Boudinot: Vycarb is a full-stack carbon capture and storage technology company based in Brooklyn, established about three years ago. What makes our approach truly unique is that we use water as the medium for capturing and storing CO₂. The roots of our technology come from my background as a climate scientist, where much of my work focused on tracing carbon cycling in the climate system in response to climate change and understanding how the ocean naturally absorbs and stores CO₂. In nature, the ocean acts as a massive carbon sink — CO₂ gas dissolves into seawater, forms carbonic acid, and then reacts with minerals containing calcium and magnesium to create bicarbonate (HCO₃⁻). This bicarbonate is a non-gaseous, stable, and inert form of carbon that can remain safely stored in ocean waters for up to 100,000 years. In fact, this process already removes roughly a billion tonnes of CO₂ every year from the atmosphere.
Recognising the power of this natural mechanism, we developed Vycarb’s technology to accelerate and control this reaction for industrial applications — including aluminium production. Essentially, we capture CO₂ emissions from industrial sources, introduce that gas into our reactor system along with natural waters — from rivers, lakes, or coastal areas — and add calcium and magnesium-rich minerals. The system then converts CO₂ into bicarbonate, which can be safely released back into natural waters as a permanent and climate-safe form of carbon storage.
Our technology stack has two main components:
First, the chemical processing system, which handles the hardware side — capturing CO₂, mixing it with water and minerals, and ensuring precise control of reaction conditions. This system is designed to manage a wide range of CO₂ purity levels, which is a major advantage. Many industrial sources, including aluminium smelters, emit low-purity CO₂, mixed with other gases. Conventional carbon capture technologies require high-purity CO₂, meaning significant energy and cost go into separating and compressing the gas. Vycarb’s system can bypass those steps entirely — it takes low-purity CO₂ directly and converts it straight into bicarbonate.
Second, our sensing and monitoring technology provides real-time, high-resolution measurements of CO₂, bicarbonate, and overall carbon chemistry of the water. This allows us to quantify exactly how much CO₂ is captured and permanently stored, ensuring full transparency and verification. It also enables the system to self-calibrate and optimise automatically across diverse water conditions — whether it’s operating in a river, estuary, or coastal site — adapting to local chemistry and ensuring that the final bicarbonate solution remains stable and environmentally safe.
We’ve already conducted three successful real-world pilot projects across New York, using different mineral sources, water types, and CO₂ purities. Our largest system is currently operating on the East River in Brooklyn, and our current focus is on scaling up — integrating this technology directly into industrial facilities, where aluminium is an exciting sector for us. The aluminium sector, with its need for efficient and permanent decarbonisation pathways, is one of the most promising areas for deployment.
AL Circle: If we ask you to choose top five technologies that are must haves for both upstream and downstream aluminium plants, what would they be according to you?
Dr Garrett Boudinot: I am not an expert in the entire aluminium value chain, but at least from what I’ve seen from some of our partners, renewable energy sources for power is a major driver of decarbonisation in the sector. Rio Tinto, for example, has really led the way in deploying renewable energy projects specifically for their aluminium operations, and that’s had a huge impact on reducing their overall emissions.
The second area I would highlight is maritime shipping, which plays a big role in the aluminium value chain — from importing bauxite to exporting finished products. There’s a real opportunity to cut emissions from dry bulk shipping, both on the inbound and outbound sides, and that’s something we’re very focused on at Vycarb.
And the third key technology, in my view, is direct process emissions capture and storage. These are the emissions that come directly from the refining and smelting processes themselves, and addressing them through innovative carbon capture solutions is critical for achieving deep decarbonisation across the industry.
To read the complete interview, click here.
