Climeworks

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Climeworks AG
legal form Corporation
founding 2009
Seat Zurich , Switzerland
management
Number of employees 100
Branch Environmental technology, cleantech
Website climeworks.com
Status: 2017

Climeworks is a Swiss company that is a world leader in carbon dioxide air capture technology. The company filters carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) directly from the ambient air. It is an adsorption-desorption process. The centerpiece is a special filter material.

The company's goal is to filter one percent of annual global CO 2 emissions from the air by 2025 . This requires the construction of 250,000 systems, comparable to the one in Hinwil.

history

Climeworks AG was founded in November 2009 as a spin-off from ETH Zurich by Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher. The two German founders were fellow students studying mechanical engineering and had dealt with technologies for chemical and physical CO 2 removal from the ambient air on a laboratory scale as part of their studies and the subsequent doctorate . In 2011, Climeworks received capital from investors for the first time to develop a first, modular prototype. From 2012 to 2013 Climeworks went through the EIT Climate-KIC accelerator . The initial financing was followed by rapid scaling up to module technology, which has been available since 2014. In the course of the company's development, a partnership with the car manufacturer Audi was achieved . Climeworks received further support from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy , which enabled accelerated commercialization and scaling of the technology.

Climeworks is part of various European R&D projects - including the production of synthetic fuels based on CO 2 .

In May 2017 the company opened the world's first commercial project to filter CO 2 from the ambient air in Hinwil. There, 900 tons of CO 2 per year are extracted with direct air capture modules and then sold to a greenhouse operator for use as fertilizer.

A demo project followed in October 2017 in which a module for CO 2 filtering is used in Iceland. As part of the Horizon 2020 research project CarbFix 2, the CO 2 is filtered out of the air and then stored underground as a stone. Climeworks also describes the filtering of CO 2 from the ambient air for underground storage as Carbon Dioxide Removal .

A CO 2 system has been in operation at the Swiss mineral water bottler Valser since 2018 to add carbon dioxide to beverages from the air.

In April 2019, Climeworks joined forces with the Dutch Antecy BV, who are also working on direct air capture technology.

In June 2020, the company announced that it had received CHF 73 million from new private investors and family offices in German-speaking countries. Climeworks also joined the European industrial consortium Norsk e-Fuel , which plans to produce e-fuel in Norway.

Group structure

The company's headquarters are in Zurich-Oerlikon. Climeworks AG has a subsidiary, Climeworks Deutschland GmbH, based in Cologne.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Zurich Cleantech Climeworks collects new money. Retrieved June 24, 2020 .
  2. ^ Simon Evans: The Swiss company hoping to capture 1% of global CO 2 emissions by 2025. In: Carbonbrief. June 22, 2017, accessed August 3, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Benjamin von Brackel: Swiss wonder machine goes into operation. In: Frankfurter Rundschau . June 10, 2017, accessed August 3, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Climeworks raises over € 67 million to expand carbon dioxide removal. In: EIT Climate KIC. EIT Climate KIC, June 2, 2020, accessed July 16, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Power-to-X: Climeworks involved in three European projects. (PDF) Climeworks, accessed December 13, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Swiss Pickles Set to Benefit From First Carbon Capture Plant . In: Bloomberg.com . May 31, 2017 ( bloomberg.com [accessed December 13, 2017]).
  7. ↑ Christian Speicher: Zurich startup company with world premiere: CO 2 is filtered out of the air . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . June 1, 2017 ( nzz.ch [accessed December 13, 2017]).
  8. ^ Alister Doyle: From thin air to stone: greenhouse gas test starts in Iceland. Reuters, October 11, 2017, accessed December 13, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Akshat Rathi: World's first “negative emissions” plant turns carbon dioxide into stone . In: Quartz . October 12, 2017 ( qz.com [accessed December 13, 2017]).
  10. ^ Matt McGrath: Climate's magic rabbit: Pulling CO 2 out of thin air. BBC News, November 15, 2017, accessed August 3, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Valser will in future get “Blöterli” out of the air. In: Technology: Energy / Climate / Air. From FoodAktuell.ch, accessed on August 27, 2019.
  12. ↑ World premiere in the beverage industry: CO 2 from the air. At Valser.ch, accessed on August 27, 2019.
  13. ↑ Home. Antecy, accessed June 29, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Climeworks AG and Antecy BV are joining forces & thereby boosting technology portfolio. In: Climeworks offers a technology to reverse climate change. Climeworks, September 5, 2019, accessed June 29, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Bloomberg - Are you a robot? Retrieved June 2, 2020 .
  16. ^ Making unlimited renewable fuel a reality. In: Climeworks - a climate-positive world enabled by direct air capture. Climeworks, June 9, 2020, accessed July 7, 2020 .
  17. ^ Norsk e-Fuel (Ed.): Norsk e-Fuel is planning Europe's first commercial plant for hydrogen-based renewable aviation fuel in Norway . Fornebu (Norway) June 8, 2020.