How do we solve the Direct-Air-Capture (DAC) problem?
Capturing carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere is currently a challenge and many companies currently working in Direct air capture have very high capex and opex, which leads to high costs per ton of carbon dioxide removal.
Current Challenges with Direct-Air-Capture (DAC) are as follows:
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Very high cost, in many cases commercially unviable
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Unavoidable
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We have to remove 100-1000 gigatons of Carbon Dioxide directly from the atmosphere in this century.
Reasons for the above challenges:
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Concentration of of Carbon Dioxide in Air is very thin - 416 PPM or 0.04%; To remove 1 Gigaton of CO2 from the atmosphere would require processing 1.34X10^15 cubic meters of air. This volume of air cannot be reduced.
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Sequestration: Once carbon dioxide is captured, its storage in a safe format is another challenge which requires huge amounts of energy. This can be done utilizing natural methods and other artificial means. In most DAC plants currently functioning the carbon dioxide is sequestered deep underground or converted into compounds which can be used in another industry like fuel. In both cases the sequestration costs are very high.
What is needed?
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High Throughput, irrespective of the capture/absorption technology; We need to increase the air processing capacity disproportionately with respect to the increase in cost leading to a low cost/tonne.
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Easy sequestration so that it does not add substantially to the cost.
Our 3-Step Solution
1. High Throughput Reactor (HTR)
2. Ocean Surface Reactor (OSR)
3. Making Fuel via photocatalysis
Our proprietary patent pending High Throughput Reactor (HTR) has been designed to increase throughput. It is a contactor-less design, uses sea water with enhanced alkalinity as the solvent, does not use harsh chemicals, heating or cooling and thus saves a substantial amount of energy and cost.
After the reaction send the sea water with absorbed carbon dioxide back to the sea, thereby sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide into the sea, leading to easy sequestration.
Our patent pending Ocean Surface Reactor (OSR) can be placed on the sea surface, thus the need to pump sea water back and forth to the reactor placed on the coast is done away with reducing further costs. This arrangement allows indefinite scaling leading to economies of scale and reduction in cost per tonne.
Why have we chosen the the oceans for sequestration?
We not only have to remove but also park the hundreds of billion tonnes of Carbon Dioxide that have been captured for thousands of years. We have realized that there is no better place to park hundreds of billion tonnes of carbon dioxide other than in our seas and oceans. To give you an idea of the scale, if we were to remove all the CO2 from the atmosphere and put it in the oceans, it would only increase the amount of carbon in ocean chemistry by only 2%.
There is enough space in our oceans.
What are the advantages of our method?
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Easy sequestration: The CO2 is sequestered into the sea
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No regeneration: No regeneration plant/facility required
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Natural Materials Used: Available in Nature - need not be produced
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Sea water used & returned to the sea - Not affecting the earth’s water table, thus not affecting freshwater
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Help the oceans maintain their alkalinity
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Can be scaled indefinitely
We are making fuel out of carbon dioxide contained in the air by the process of Photocatalysis using a photocatalytic reactor and a special nano-catalyst.
