The company communicates that the plant, which is located in Hinwil, Switzerland, has the capacity to capture 900 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per year. It is going to be the first in the world to sell captured atmospheric carbon dioxide to a customer – which is going to be a nearby greenhouse, which will use it to enhance the growth of its vegetables by up to 20 per cent.
The project, which will cost between €3m and €4m, aims to show that Climeworks' direct air capture (DAC) technology can run at an industrial scale. The pilot plant will determine operational costs for similar projects with the final goal to provide information for business models based on the technology. Data regarding mass and energy balances, as well as economic ones are going to be extracted during the first launch.
The technology is based on an innovative filter that chemically binds CO2 to its surface. The CO2 remains bound to the filter until heat around 100o C is applied, providing an effective storage solution. The stored CO2 can then be used to provide near-neutral energy solutions for a range of industrial processes, such as soft drink carbonization, growing plants in commercial greenhouses, and in the production of synthetic fuels. Some important attributes of the filters are that they can fit into modular plants, are scalable as stand-alone facilities, and are attachable to preexisting industrial structures — they can turn waste heat energy into power by enabling plants to capture carbon. Finally since the temperature under which they operate is relatively low the can be reused several times.
The plants feature a modular design and the capacity is scalable in multiples of 35 kg per hour (300 metric tons per year). Individual modules consist of six Climeworks CO2 collektors which are fitted into a standard 40-foot container. The capture plants are fully automated, controlled via key panel and touch screen display and are suitable for autonomous 24/7 operation.
In the short-term, the company plans to use the technology to supply CO2 to refreshments companies. Climeworks ultimately hopes to use the technology as a way to store renewable electricity as a carbon-neutral synthetic fuel, produced using only atmospheric CO2, water, and clean electricity.
The construction of the plant comes as part of a three-year pilot and demonstration project with electrics company Gebrüder Meier and municipal waste disposal company Zweckverband Kehrichtverwertung Zürcher Oberland, with support from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy.