Climeworks AG (Zürich, Switzerland; www.climeworks.com) and Antecy B.V. (Hoevelaken, the Netherlands; www.antecy.com) share the same goal of removing climate-relevant amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere and joining forces renders this goal more achievable. The combination of their technologies will result in even more powerful solutions for both carbon dioxide removal, as well as direct air capture and CO2 utilization.
The two direct-air capture (DAC) companies have been discussing a collaboration since mid-2018 and in April 2019, an agreement was reached to join forces and fully merge teams, technology development, brands and business activities. Antecy’s relevant assets have been acquired by Climeworks and the business activities of both Antecy and Climeworks will be conducted through Climeworks AG, Switzerland.
Climeworks has been capturing CO2 from ambient air since 2009 and has developed a portfolio of different sorbent materials, process technology, and plant designs. Its DAC solutions are characterized by a high degree of modularity, not only in terms of scale, but also of technologies implemented; in particular with regard to sorbent materials and related processes. Climeworks purposefully designed its modular CO2 collectors in a versatile manner – allowing them to use different sorbent materials and operate with different processes.
Antecy has been developing non-amine-based sorbent materials for CO2 capture since 2010. The Antecy team thereby bring with them more than a decade of expertise in alternative sorbent materials and process development and a corresponding IP portfolio – as well as customers and public funding bodies. Antecy’s sorbent materials offer particularly low-cost production routes.
Joining forces strengthens and broadens the Climeworks technology portfolio, and will speed up the further development of Climeworks’ DAC technology.
“Our DAC products are designed to be technology agnostic; our sole purpose is to deliver the most transparent and most scalable DAC solutions possible,” says Climeworks co-founder and CEO Jan Wurzbacher. “By complementing our portfolio with new technologies such as those developed by Antecy, we can further strengthen our offerings to the market.”
“We are delighted about this joint undertaking and strongly believe that the combination of our technologies will result in even more powerful products for both carbon dioxide removal, as well as direct air capture and CO2 utilization,” says Paul O’Connor, managing director at Antecy.