When it comes to climate change, there is no such thing as a “get out of jail free” card. But there may be a cheaper alternative: taking the air directly.
Technology is not exactly an exoneration, but more like a public service; promises to absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, covering our century—along with excessive burning of fossil fuels. Scientifically, it’s a sound idea. In business, it has been less so.
Currently, it costs about $600 to $1,000 to capture a metric ton of carbon, which is more than anyone thinks can be traded. Therefore, many startups are running to reduce costs, with the goal of capturing a metric ton of carbon dioxide for $100 or less.
Even at that price, it can be a tough sell since burning fuel remains, for the most part, free. But many investors and even a few multinationals like Microsoft, Shopify, and Stripe are betting that eventually, the world will embrace direct air capture, much like the way we capture wastewater today. instead of throwing them in the river.
Big companies like Climeworks and Carbon Engineering are betting that scale will help recover costs. Both companies use sorbents to absorb carbon dioxide and use heat to release it from the sorbents so it can be stored elsewhere.
Small startups suggest that scale alone won’t be enough, however. “Heat retrofitting is always an expensive, energy-wise step,” said Malte Feucht, co-founder and CEO of Phlair, a direct air capture startup. He may have a point. One study says that capturing meaningful carbon, about 10 gigatons per year, using Carbon Engineering would require about a third of the electricity generated in the world today.
Feucht’s company thinks that a different process that does not depend on temperature can help lower costs. Like many direct air capture companies, Phlair uses fans to blow air over the air intake. But instead of heating the sorbent, it uses acid to release carbon dioxide. To produce the acid and base used in the process, Phlair, formerly known as Carbon Atlantis, developed a device it calls a hydrolyzer.
The hydrolyzer borrows heavily from the hydrogen industry, taking elements from membrane-based electrolyzers and membrane-based fuel cells, Feucht said. (An electrolyzer produces hydrogen with electricity, whereas a fuel cell uses hydrogen to produce it.)
“Instead of hydrogen, we produce only acids and bases,” he said.
Phlair’s DAC machine uses a process known as “pH swing” to capture carbon dioxide. Inside, the basic (high pH) solution absorbs carbon dioxide as it flows through the air compressor. After the saturated solvent leaves the contractor, it is dumped into a tank where it is acidified (low pH). That movement in pH from high to low triggers a chemical reaction that releases carbon dioxide so that it can be taken up into other pipes for use or storage. The solvent then returns to the hydrolyzer where it is regenerated.
Phlair is installing a pilot in the next few weeks, Feucht said, which could capture about 10 tons of carbon a year. Next, the startup is working on a larger, 260-metric-ton plant that is slated to come online by the end of 2025. One built with Paebble in the Netherlands will provide carbon to help make a cement boat, while another in Canada will be built by Deep Sky, the developer of the carbon removal project, which will store carbon.
The DAC startup has already sold dozens of carbon credits to organizations like Frontier, working with Alphabet, Meta, Shopify, Stripe, and others to create advanced market commitments for direct air capture.
To help complete larger projects, Phlair has raised a seed of 12 million euros as well as 2.5 million grants from the EU’s EIC Accelerator. Exantia Capital led the investment round with Atlantic Labs, Counteract, Planet A, UnternehmerTUM Funding for Innovators, and Verve Ventures participating.
“I think this is a unique time in history. Ten years ago, you probably would have needed to find an NGO to do what we do,” said Feucht. “Now, there’s a real opportunity to serve customers, to build a company that works, but also to solve that problem. [carbon] problem. For me, that’s my motivation, it’s huge. ”
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