Mission Zero Technologies (MZT) has been chosen to begin trialling their ground-breaking Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology previously developed with support from the UK government’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), funded through the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP). Phase 1 of the project saw the completion of the R&D work, FEED activities, and deployment planning exercise; Phase 2 will see this realised into a working pilot plant alongside partners Optimus and O.C.O Technology Ltd. The project’s £3 million funding is part of a wider pool of funding for emerging climate technologies recently released through BEIS.
“This £54 million government investment announced today will help establish a greenhouse gas removal industry in the UK, which could be worth billions to our economy, bringing in private investment and supporting the creation of new green jobs.” — Energy and Climate Change Minister, Greg Hands
DAC is a carbon capture technology approach that focuses on removing CO₂ directly from the atmosphere around us. Typically this requires significant amounts of heat and electricity and large commitments of capital, making the economics and commercialization timelines challenging.
MZT, a London-based startup, is disrupting the status quo with a modularized DAC technology that is projected to reduce both energy consumption as well as capture costs by over 4 times compared to today’s commercial offerings, with a roadmap to dropping below the $100/ton price point at commercial scales. Through partnership with Optimus and O.C.O, phase 2 will extend the application of this technology to reuse of the CO₂ in the creation of Manufactured LimeStone, a valuable building material.
The scaled demonstration from phase 2 will be one of the first demonstrations of DAC integrating with a carbon-negative use case that both utilises and sequesters carbon (commonly known as CCU/CCS). While the project runs from mid 2022 to 2025, the plant is expected to come online in the middle of 2023. This will take MZT’s technology to TRL6*. Alongside developing the plant, MZT aims to involve local students and community organisations in knowledge dissemination activities about DAC.
“Reversing climate change is the imperative of our generation, what could be more exciting to be involved in than a process that efficiently hoovers CO₂ directly from the atmosphere! Having worked with Mission Zero now for almost 2 years, we have been inspired by their purpose from day 1 and are very excited to make our engineering design contribution towards the realisation of the pilot plant in phase 2 of this race.” — CEO, Optimus, Chris West
Further to this, the use of sequestered carbon in creating limestone will be a breakthrough in providing circular use cases for captured CO₂. This is significant for providing a market for captured CO₂ usage and creating building materials which permanently capture the CO₂ and can be used for critical infrastructure.
“There is no doubt carbon capture has huge potential and we are very excited to be involved in the next stage of this development. Combining Mission Zero’s DAC technologies with our own ability to to use the CO₂ in the manufacture of a carbon negative aggregate, is both a positive step for the environment and delivers practicality in the form of sustainable building materials for the future.” — Chairman, O.C.O Technology, Richard Skehens
This funding was awarded through Phase 2 of the Direct Air Capture and other Greenhouse Gas Removal Technologies competition organised by BEIS. This is the first competition of its kind in the UK and is aimed at accelerating the development of early-stage technologies for removing greenhouse gases (gases such as CO₂ that contribute to global warming) from the atmosphere. The proliferation of and public support for such technologies are critical for achieving Net Zero targets and mitigating climate change.
*(TRL or Technological Readiness Level is a scale from 1-9, with 1 denoting basic research of an idea and 9 representing a fully-realised commercial implementation of a technology).
