Conventional deicers for roadways and runways, such as sodium chloride, can be corrosive to vehicles and infrastructure, and environmentally damaging to vegetation, soil, and water. The US Army has expressed an interest in potassium formate as a deicer, as it is more environmentally friendly and less corrosive than traditional, chloride-based deicers. These advantages make it the deicer of choice for aerospace applications. Opus 12 has developed a commercial polymer-electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolyzer that can be coupled with renewable power to produce chemicals using CO2 and water as the only inputs. The technology has presently been developed to a technology readiness level of TRL-6, with a kW-scale, multi-cell stack, prototype commercial unit successfully generating CO for downstream processes since mid-2019. Using this technology, Opus 12 can generate carbon monoxide (CO), and combine it with potassium hydroxide to produce potassium formate in-situ. This process can be containerized for drop-in deployment, and enable local production of potassium formate from waste CO2 at its point of use via an economical and environmentally friendly pathway. Successful deployment of this onsite potassium formate production technology on bases and deployed environments would improve resilience and sustainability, decrease logistics complexity, and improve combat capability and readiness.
