At around 14:25 of today's interview video, Monsieur Tourrillon talks about how carbon is an important feedstock for making Si. He said it was "more important" in the traditional process (the one HPQ is trying to replace). But still, in the 2021/09 (p. 9) corporate deck it says that HPQ still needs carbon for the QRR process. It's shown as SiO2 + "clean coal."

Which leads me to this question: instead of coal, would carbon black be an acceptable carbon feedstock?

If so, then an interesting offtake opportunity may emerge related to Pyrogenesis' recently announced patent aimed at a future methane pyrolysis offering.

Pyrogenesis announced that it is working on turquoise hydrogen, using plasma pyrolysis to turn methane into H2 and carbon black. Part of the business model for this technology would be that there is not only a market for H2 but also for carbon black.

According to ARPA-E, "1 Quad of Hydrogen via Methane Pyrolysis also generates ~32 Million MT of solid carbon at 70% net hydrogen yield." (https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2021-09/h2-shot-summit-panel2-methane-pyrolysis.pdf) That's a LOT of carbon black. Maybe too much? The way a paper at Lux Research put it (https://www.luxresearchinc.com/blog/technology-landscape-key-players-in-methane-pyrolysis):

The global carbon black market today is estimated at 15 million tonnes per year. If all of this carbon black were to be supplied by methane pyrolysis, it would correspond to a hydrogen production of 6 million tonnes per year. This is equivalent to just 8% of the global hydrogen market. Therefore, deploying methane pyrolysis at a global scale will lead to a crash in the carbon black market and essentially make it worthless.

Wouldn't the problem (for Pyro) of "a glut of carbon black" open the door for HPQ to negotiate an extremely favorable carbon offtake agreement? And wouldn't that help M. Tourrillon's quest to compete on cost?

This scenario assumes that: (1) methane pyrolysis takes off, (2) PyroGenesis's technology comes to fruition in that space, AND (3) it assumes that carbon black is an appropriate feedstock for the QRR.

So IS carbon black an appropriate feedstock for the QRR? I have no idea. Does anyone know the chemistry? Thanks.