Capturing CO 2 from Air
Herbstworkshop Energiespeichersysteme, TU Dresden
29 November 2017
Jan Wurzbacher, Director & Founder, jw@[Link]
CONFIDENTIAL
WHY DIRECT AIR CAPTURE OF CO 2
Achievement of climate targets can
be summarized in 3 points:
1. Until 2050 global CO2 emissions
have to reach 0 Gt/y
2. In order to achieve 0 Gt/y all
mitigation technologies have to be
combined with carbon removal
3. Starting 2050 global CO2 emissions
have to become negative in order
to revert climate change
87% of IPCC modeling scenarios
consistent with 2 °C of global warming
involve large scale deployments of CO2
removal from air.
3
CO 2 REMOVAL VIA DIRECT AIR CAPTURE
CO2 is captured directly from the air
1 using renewable, e.g.,
geothermal energy
2
CO2 is pumped
underground at
favorable CO2
storage sites, e.g.
Iceland.
3
CO2 reacts with
underground rock
formations and is
mineralized. Thereby CO2
is bound permanently
and safely, reducing the
CO2-content of the
atmosphere.
4
CO 2-NEUTRAL FUELS VIA DIRECT AIR CAPTURE
1
4
Waste heat from fuel
synthesis can drive CO2
desorption and
significantly increase the
system efficiency
3 2
5
THE CLIMEWORKS SOLUTION
• Worldwide first company supplying
atmospheric CO2 to customer
• Industrial CO2 capture plants
• Scale-up through mass production
of CO2 Collector modules
• Low-temperature heat
(solar/waste) as main energy input
• Minimal carbon footprint
< 10% side emissions (CO2-eq)
6
HOW OUR TECHNOLOGY WORKS
7
HOW OUR TECHNOLOGY WORKS
Climeworks plants capture atmospheric CO2 with a filter. Air is
drawn into the plant and the CO2 within the air is chemically bound
to the filter.
Once the filter is saturated with CO2 it is heated (using mainly low-
grade heat as an energy source) to around 100 °C. The CO2 is then
released from the filter and collected as concentrated CO2 gas.
CO2 -free air is released back into the atmosphere. This continuous
cycle is then ready to start again. The filter is reused and lasts for
several thousand cycles.
• Developed in collaboration with ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material
Testing (Empa)
• The development has been supported by total public funding of CHF 7M
6 European Union projects
2 projects funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy
1 project funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research
• Climeworks owns 10 patent families, covering the filter, the process, the apparatus and certain
applications
• More than 10’000 hours of operational experience; technology has been tested in full scale
during 1 year
8
EXAMPLE: CO 2 AND H 2O CAPACITIES
• Effect of increasing RH 20
80%
• qCO2 x ≈1.7
• qH2O x ≈5
• Minor effect of adsorption
temperature
• H2O desorption can account for
50%+ of heat consumption
Wurzbacher, J. A. et al. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2012, 46, 9191-9198
9
PRODUCTS
CLIMEWORKS CO 2 CAPTURE PLANT CLIMEWORKS CO 2 DEMONSTRATOR
• 50+ t CO2 / y • 2 t CO2 / y
• Integrable with customer utilities • Stand-alone and mobile device
• Online since 2014 • Online since 2012
• 6 units sold • 4 units sold
10
MARKETS
MERCHANT MARKET
• Onsite CO2-supply for bottlers, greenhouses, etc.
• 10-15Mt CO2 / y
RENEWABLE FUELS AND MATERIALS
• Onsite CO2-supply for renewable fuel synthesis
• 120Mt fuel / y
CARBON DIOXIDE REMOVAL
• Large-scale CO2 removal from air
• 10Gt CO2 / y
11
GREENHOUSE FLAGSHIP PROJECT
Plant type: DAC-18
CO2 capacity: 2’460 kg/day
Customer: Greenhouse
Heat source: Waste heat
Location: Hinwil, CH
Commissioning: 31st May 2017
Worldwide first commercial DAC
plant
12
RECOGNITION AS INDUSTRY LEADER
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CO 2 REMOVAL FLAGSHIP PROJECT
Plant type: DAC-1
CO2 capacity: 100 kg/day
CO2 application: Mineralization of
CO2 negative
emissions
Heat source: Geothermal
Location: Hellisheidi,
Iceland
Commissioning: 11th Oct. 2017
Worldwide first CO2 removal via
DAC
14
CUSTOMERS & REFERENCES
Food, beverages & agriculture Renewable fuels & materials Carbon dioxide removal
• Selling negative
• Selling CO2 from DAC-18 • Sold Demonstrator and
emissions from DAC-1
plant to greenhouse DAC-1 plant to AUDI
plant
• Closed CO2 purchase • Sold DAC-1 plant to UK
agreement with globally utility
leading beverage
company to supply
atmospheric CO2 from • Sold DAC-3 plant for
DAC-18 plant Power-to-Gas
demonstration project
• Sold two Demonstrators
for renewable materials
demonstration project
• Sold Demonstrator for
Power-to-Liquid research
project
1 plant (+1 in pipeline) 7 plants 1 plant
Climeworks has to date sold 9 plants/CO2 purchase agreements in all key market segments
15
COMPANY HISTORY
Founded as ETH
spin-off by Jan Finalist of Virgin Earth
Wurzbacher and Challenge, a USD 25 mio. Developed modular
Christoph Gebald prize by Richard Branson CO2 collector
2009 2011 2014
2010 2013 2017
Won Venture Kick, Established strategic Commissioned the
Switzerland’s leading partnership with carmaker world’s first commercial
startup incubation AUDI scale direct air capture
initiative plant and the world’s first
negative emissions plant
via DAC
45 FTE’s, largest team of experts in the field Raised over CHF 22 M through equity and grants
16
ASSEMBLY AND PRODUCTION INFRASTRUCTURE
• Current production capacity:
Up to 100 CO2 Collectors
annually, which is the equivalent of
5 DAC-18 CO2 capture plants as
operated for the greenhouse in
Hinwil, Switzerland
• In-house manufacturing of CO2
Collectors (core components)
• Large supplier network for other
plant components
• Assembly of turnkey plants with
minimal installation effort onsite
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VISION 1/25
CAPTURE 1% OF GLOBAL CO 2 EMISSIONS BY 2025
Climeworks AG
Birchstrasse 155 • CH - 8050 Zurich
+41 (0) 44 533 29 99 • contact@[Link]
[Link]
