CO2 moving through carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) chains must hit 99.9% purity with impurities held at parts-per-billion levels before it clears the ISBT beverage standard — and that same analytical discipline is now spreading across the entire captured-carbon value chain, from custody transfer points to permanent sequestration wells.

That is the core argument from Trevor Tillman, Engineer III, Field Applications at Thermo Fisher Scientific, in a new interview published by AZoCleantech. Tillman, who supports the company's MAX-Bev CO2 Purity Monitoring System, frames CCUS not as a capture technology but as a connected value chain where measurement failures carry hard financial consequences.

"Capturing CO2 is only the first step," Tillman said. Once captured, the gas must be transported and either used in another process or stored permanently — and every stage carries its own specification.

What is driving industrial CCUS deployment?

Two forces are pushing facilities toward CCUS, according to Tillman: government programs and corporate targets. In Europe, the Emissions Trading System prices emissions; in the United States, greenhouse gas regulations affect power plants. On top of that, companies with reduction targets can buy carbon credits from operators running net-negative CO2 processes.

"CCUS is gaining momentum because it provides industrial facilities with a way to offset their existing greenhouse gas emissions," Tillman said.

Four capture routes dominate: pre-combustion capture via syngas generation; post-combustion capture using amine solvents — the most common technique because operators can retrofit it onto existing plants; oxy-fuel combustion with pure oxygen; and direct air capture. Direct air capture remains expensive, Tillman noted, because atmospheric CO2 concentration sits at only around 400 ppm, far below flue-gas concentrations.

Why does stream composition decide pipeline survival?

Transport is where impurity chemistry bites. Captured CO2 streams vary widely depending on source and capture technique. Nitrogen oxides and sulfur species — H2S and SO2 — can react with water and oxygen inside pipelines to form nitric and sulfuric acid, degrading infrastructure.

The stakes are elevated because much of the future CO2 network may rely on existing carbon steel pipelines originally built for oil and gas. Even at single-digit to tens of ppm, critical impurities can create acid-forming reaction conditions; glycols can accelerate reactions by creating buffer conditions in pipelines. Tillman said some organizations are researching whether changes in pipeline elevation affect reaction mechanisms.

This is one reason no single global specification for CO2 transport and storage exists yet, he added.

Beyond pipelines, operators around the North Sea already move CO2 on converted LNG ships to receiving hubs. Trucking networks may follow for landlocked facilities — and in those cases, transport emissions themselves will need quantifying.

Where does utilization create revenue?

Tillman expects CO2 utilization to grow in importance over the next five to 10 years because capture is expensive. Facilities that purify captured CO2 to product-grade quality gain a revenue stream beyond storage-linked carbon offsets.

Current and emerging uses include:

• Beverage-grade CO2, governed by the ISBT standard
• Urea production for fertilizer manufacturing
• Calcium carbonate for cement
• E-fuels: CO2 reacted with carbon monoxide to produce methanol, then converted via Fischer-Tropsch into hydrocarbons, including sustainable aviation fuel

"Usage allows us to recycle previously combusted hydrocarbons and potentially turn them back into viable products," Tillman said.

What does storage demand from operators?

Permanent sequestration in saline aquifers or depleted oil wells carries strict expectations. In some cases, Tillman said, the requirement is that the storage site not exceed a 10% leak rate over a thousand years. Operators must verify impurity levels stay in specification, because reactions under extreme pressure could degrade the storage formation.

Monitoring also ties directly to tax credits, since operators must quantify exactly how much CO2 enters the ground. Enhanced oil recovery adds another pathway: operators capture and liquefy CO2, displace oil with it more effectively than water, and offset emissions at the same time.

How does FTIR monitoring hold the chain together?

The MAX-Bev system enters the chain after capture, purification and liquefaction, working at custody transfer points — for example, where liquefied CO2 sits in tanks before shipping. Its multiplexing capability samples from up to nine storage tanks and outputs a certificate of analysis for custody transfer. Installed at pumping and compression stations, it confirms no reactions occur and no new impurities enter the stream. At receiving hubs, it decides acceptance: in-spec CO2 goes to sequestration; off-spec CO2 gets rejected.

The underlying Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy measures from low parts per billion up to 100% simultaneously, and delivers automatic feedback in as little as 30 seconds — critical when off-spec CO2 must be caught before it travels further down a pipeline. Calibration transferability allows new components to be added remotely to existing units, and monthly QAQC takes roughly an hour and a half.

The near-term milestones to watch: whether the market converges on common CO2 transport and storage specifications, and whether utilization revenues — beverage, e-fuels, cement — scale fast enough over the next decade to offset capture costs that storage-linked credits alone have not yet covered.