Find a Suitable Rock that Reacts with Carbon Naturally
Certain rocks naturally react with the atmosphere and pull carbon out of it, like nickel mine tailings, and there are millions of tonnes of these minerals available to put to use.
Enhance the Natural Mineralization Process
Companies use a range of technologies to accelerate this natural reaction, turning a process that normally takes thousands of years into one that happens in days or weeks. This can be by arranging tailings for maximum contact with the air or using machines that speed the reaction along with electromagnetic waves.
Store the New Rock
As the minerals react and absorb carbon, they form a new rock that locks the carbon away permanently, and this often helps neutralize the hazardous elements in mine tailings at the same time. Some companies can even mix this rock with cement to make concrete for buildings.
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How does Carbon Mineralization work?
Canada can remove carbon from the atmosphere while cleaning up its mine tailings and industrial waste. When CO2 comes into contact with certain minerals, found in mine tailings and industrial byproducts, a chemical reaction occurs that permanently turns the carbon into stone.
The technology mimics what Earth does naturally over millions of years with rocks like basalt and magnesium-rich minerals that react with CO2 . This process can take place aboveground using mine tailings, underground using natural rock formations, or at industrial facilities. By crushing these minerals into fine particles or injecting CO2 into reactive rock formations, we can achieve the same permanent storage in weeks instead of millennia.
As an added benefit, the carbon mineralization process can extract valuable critical minerals like nickel, cobalt, and rare earth elements from mine tailings. This creates a new revenue stream where mines can be paid for carbon removal while also recovering minerals essential for electric vehicles, batteries, and clean energy technologies that would otherwise be wasted.
Co-Benefits from Carbon Mineralization
Recover Critical Minerals
The carbon mineralization process can extract additional critical minerals from tailings, turning waste into another revenue stream.
Clean Up Mine Tailings
Carbon mineralization stores carbon from the atmosphere in the mine tailings, which also neutralizes the tailing’s toxicity.
Industries Supported
Mining
Carbon mineralization turns mine tailings into a carbon-storing asset and often neutralizes their hazardous elements, cutting cleanup liabilities while creating a new revenue stream from waste rock.
Construction
The new rock produced through mineralization can be used as aggregate and building material, giving the construction sector a low-carbon input while permanently locking carbon into infrastructure.
Steel
Carbon mineralization can process slag and other mineral byproducts of steelmaking, giving the industry a way to store carbon and turn its waste streams into useful, marketable material.
Project snapshot
Algoma & Contrecoeur CDR
Sault Ste. Marie, ON & Contrecoeur, QC
Karbonetiq spreads steel slag, an unavoidable leftover from the steelmaking process, into thin, aerated layers so it reacts with air and permanently locks CO2 away as solid rock. Both of its Canadian sites are running: the Contrecoeur, QC plant went live in 2025, and the Algoma site in Sault Ste. Marie, ON is now removing an estimated 35,000 tonnes a year.
Quebec Surficial Mineralization Hub
Thetford Mines, QC
Launched in April 2026, this is the world’s first hub dedicated to surficial mineralization, turning decades of asbestos mine tailings into permanent carbon storage at the surface, with no drilling required. Through a partnership with Carbon Removal Canada, Frontier is backing project applicants with R&D grants and prepurchases as part of its $1 billion advance market commitment, giving developers access to feedstock, stakeholder relationships, regulatory guidance, and a path to commercial offtakes.
