"We've been building our business and technologies in a market that was already warming to our efforts," Kristof stated. "With a change in the American presidency and flux in the personnel of Congress, many pundits believe that alternative fuels and sustainability are likely to find greater application in the coming years. We're ready."

In November 2007, Mantra acquired its flagship technology, a chemical process developed at the University of British Columbia's Clean Energy Research Center referred to as the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide, or ERC. Mantra has since filed for international patent protection for this technology. The reactor at the heart of the process has been successfully proven through small-scale prototype trials.

ERC offers an innovative solution to reduce the impact of carbon dioxide (CO2) on Earth's environment by converting CO2 into materials with a broad range of commercial applications, including a fuel for a next generation of fuel cells.

The ERC process combines captured carbon dioxide with water to produce high value materials, such as formic acid and formate salts, which are conventionally obtained from the thermochemical processing of fossil fuels. However, ERC has an advantage over the established thermochemical methods for converting carbon dioxide to liquid fuels.

While thermochemical reactions must be driven at relatively high temperatures that are normally obtained by burning fossil fuels, ERC operates at near ambient conditions and is driven by electric energy that can be taken from an electric power grid supplied by hydro, wind, solar or nuclear energy.

ERC's primary purpose is to convert CO2, a harmful waste product of burning fossil fuels and manufacturing, into a valuable product: formic acid. The annual value of formic acid sales last year was approximately $600 Million.

However, that figure could increase significantly upon implementation of ERC in large scale processes in which formic acid could be generated and used on-site. Formic acid is one of the strongest of the organic acids, but is biodegradable.

As such, formic acid can replace a number of different inorganic acids in various industrial applications in a more environmentally safe manner. As an example, steel manufacturers could switch to formic acid for the removal of rust and oxidation (pickling) from their steel products as suggested by Centre de Recherches Metallurgiques, a European steel research association.

Currently, the most widely used chemical for this process is hydrochloric acid. The worldwide market for hydrochloric acid was approximately $6 Billion last year and one quarter of all hydrochloric acid produced in the US was used in steel pickling. By attaching an ERC reactor to a steel plant, Mantra could help reduce harmful CO2 emissions and lower process costs by eliminating the need to purchase hydrochloric acid.

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