Sustainable Biz - Magazine - Page 21
Even at that price, it could be a difficult sell
since burning fossil fuels remains, for the
most part, free. But many investors and
even a few multinational corporations like
Microsoft, Shopify, and Stripe are betting
that eventually, the world will embrace
direct air capture, much like how we treat
wastewater today instead of dumping it into
a river.
Larger startups like Climeworks and
Carbon Engineering are betting that scale
will help rein costs in. Both companies
use sorbents to draw out the carbon
dioxide and use heat to release it from the
sorbents so it can be stored elsewhere.
Smaller startups suggest that scale alone
won’t be enough, though. “Thermal
regeneration is always the expensive step,
energy wise,” said Malte Feucht, co-founder
and CEO of Phlair, a young direct air
Capturing a meaningful amount of carbon,
around 10 gigatons per year, using traditional
approaches would require nearly three-quarters
of all the electricity generated in the world today.
That’s why different methods, like using a pH
swing instead of heat, are critical to making
direct air capture commercially viable.
capture startup. He may have a point. One
study says that capturing a meaningful
amount of carbon, around 10 gigatons per
year, using Carbon Engineering’s approach
would require nearly three-quarters of all
the electricity generated in the world today.
Feucht’s company thinks that a different
approach that doesn’t rely on heat might
help bring costs down. Like most direct air
capture companies, Phlair uses fans to blow
air over an absorber. But instead of heating
the sorbent, it uses an acid to liberate the
carbon dioxide. To produce the acid and
base used in the process, Phlair, formerly
known as Carbon Atlantis, developed a
device it calls a hydrolyser.
The hydrolyser borrows heavily from the
hydrogen industry, taking elements from
both membrane-based electrolysers and
membrane-based fuel cells, Feucht said.
(An electrolyser makes hydrogen using
electricity, whereas a fuel cell consumes
hydrogen to produce it.)
“Instead of hydrogen, we only produce
acids and bases,” he said.
Phlair’s DAC machine employs what’s
known as the “pH swing” method to
capture carbon dioxide. Inside, the basic
(high pH) solvent absorbs carbon dioxide
as it flows through the air contractor. After
the saturated solvent exits the contractor,
it is dumped into a tank where it’s doused
with acid (low pH). That swing in pH from
high to low spurs a chemical reaction that
releases the carbon dioxide so it can be
piped elsewhere to be used or stored. The
solvent then flows back into the hydrolyser
where it’s regenerated.
Phlair is deploying a pilot in the next few
weeks, Feucht said, that can capture around
10 metric tons of carbon per year. After that,
the startup is working on larger, 260-metricton plants that are scheduled to come online
in late 2025. One being built with Paebbl in
the Netherlands will deliver carbon to help
make a cement additive, while the other in
Canada will be built with Deep Sky, a carbon
removal project developer, which will store
the carbon.
The DAC startup has already sold a number
of carbon credits to organizations like
Frontier, which works with Alphabet, Meta,
Shopify, Stripe, and others to create an
advanced market commitment for direct air
capture.
To help complete the larger projects, Phlair
has raised a €12 million seed round along
with a €2.5 million grant from the EU’s
EIC Accelerator. Extantia Capital led the
investment round with Atlantic Labs,
Counteract, Planet A, UnternehmerTUM
Funding for Innovators, and Verve Ventures
participating.
“I think this is a sort of a unique time in
history. Ten years ago, you would have
probably needed to found an NGO to do
what we’re doing,” Feucht said. “Now there’s
a real opportunity to serve customers, to
build a functioning company, but then also
to address that [carbon] problem. For me,
that’s my personal, super big motivation.”
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