Partner Profile: Climeworks

Founded in 2009, Swiss company Climeworks is the world's leading direct air capture company and provides a solution that empowers everyone to be climate positive by removing carbon dioxide from the air. Although they work in both CO₂ sequestration and utilization, Climeworks' technology and innovations have been particularly instrumental in paving the way for carbon dioxide utilization all over the world. 

Climeworks and Omani company 44.01 join forces to unlock the potential of geological storage of air-captured CO₂ in the Middle East in a first-of-its-kind test project.

Who founded Climeworks and why?

Founded by engineers Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher, Climeworks strives to inspire 1 billion people to act now and remove carbon dioxide from the air.

What does Climeworks do?

Climeworks empowers people to reverse climate change by permanently removing carbon dioxide from the air. One of two things happens to the Climeworks air-captured carbon dioxide: either it is returned to earth, stored safely and permanently away for millions of years, or it is upcycled into climate-friendly products such as carbon-neutral fuels and materials. The Climeworks direct air capture technology runs exclusively on clean energy, and the modular CO₂ collectors can be stacked to build machines of any size. 

What is Climeworks’ newest project?

To keep global warming to safe levels, science agrees that is not enough to only reduce emissions – we have to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere that has already been emitted. Climeworks’ direct air capture technology can capture unavoidable as well as historic CO₂ emissions directly from the air. Combined with a safe and permanent storage solution, the CO₂ is removed from the air for good. The modular technology can be stacked to build machines of any size and is solely powered by renewable energy. After building and operating several plants all over Europe, Climeworks’ technology will now be tested under the climatic and geological conditions in the Middle East. This is an important step to unlock the global potential for direct air capture and storage solutions urgently needed to fight climate change.

Why Oman?

Oman has the perfect conditions to store CO₂ through the natural process of mineralization in peridotite. Carbon mineralization occurs naturally in alkaline environments: atmospheric CO₂ reacts with peridotite rocks which are rich in magnesium and calcium, to precipitate carbonates. Oman bears the potential to store trillions of tons of CO₂ permanently and safely in peridotite formations. Thereby, the CO₂ is permanently removed in natural geological carbon sinks and cannot escape back into the atmosphere. Additionally, renewable energy is abundant in Oman and 44.01 powers its process with solar energy and biofuel produced by local circular economies.

Talal Hasan, Founder and CEO of 44.01 remarked ““We are delighted to be collaborating with Climeworks on such an important project. Climeworks is a pioneer in the field of direct air capture and brings in a lot of expertise. The launch of this direct air capture plant is a major step forward for the region which has some of the highest CO₂ emissions per capita in the world.”

News in a Nutshell

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GCI Webinar: Life Cycle Assessment and Techno-economic Assessment of Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage

May 26

For more information about this free webinar, please click here or to register, please click here.

BMBF funding measure status conference: "CO₂ as a sustainable source of carbon - Pathways to industrial applications - CO₂-WIN". This virtual conference will be in English and is free.

June 8-9, 2021

For more information, please click here.

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