DAC tech firm targets sub-$100/tCO2 capture by 2030

Quantum Commodity Intelligence – An Israel-based carbon removals company expects to deliver carbon dioxide (CO2) capture-per-tonne under $100 by 2030 from its direct air capture (DAC) technology, which it says is 70% more energy efficient than other DAC technologies in the market.

RepAir launched a 'field prototype' of its DAC solution in November last year and is planning to have a demonstration plant up and running next year, the company's chief executive Amir Shiner told Quantum.

"We are now looking at several potential locations and we have been advancing discussions with Equinor about the potential of deploying the demo at one of their facilities in Norway," he said, adding that discussions are also ongoing with other "promising partners".

Equinor Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Norwegian energy major was one of several investors, which also included Shell Ventures, in RepAir's $10 million Series A funding round in November 2022.

The company was founded in 2020 having identified the potential of the technology that had been pioneered by Yushan Yan, a professor of chemistry at the University of Delaware in the US.

"We signed a license agreement which is global exclusive and we went to the US and transferred the technology over here to Israel and decided to incorporate the company here in Israel," said Shiner, although he added that they company is opening a subsidiary in the US and will shift some of its activities to North America.

Electrochemical process

The technology uses an electrochemical process that runs continuously and requires no heat input, unlike most other DAC developments, cutting energy consumption to about 0.6 megawatt-hours per tonne (t) of CO2 removed from the atmosphere.

Most DAC solutions rely on "batch-processing," which requires the heating process to start and stop, but with RepAir, there is no heat and the process enable a continuous carbon removal loop to improve energy efficiency, the company said.

The company's under $100/tCO2 for 2030 expectation, contrasts with many other developers' expectations of the low $100s a tCO2 by the 2030s if the sector is scaled up, with some current costs close to $1,000/tCO2, according to Quantum research.

The RepAir technology does not use any solvents, which contrasts with many DAC techs, and instead uses an electrochemical cell that includes two identical nickel-based electrodes – based on a design used for many years in the battery industry, said Shiner.

"We stream atmospheric air through the cell and apply electrical current through the layers of the cell," he said.

"This triggers an electrochemical reaction that selectively takes CO2 from one side of the cell to the other, such that on one side we have clean air or depleted air that goes back to the atmosphere, and on the other side we have the pure CO2 that streams out for storage or utilization," he added.

The electrode polarities and entry airflow are swapped every few hours to enable continuous direct air removal.

Prototype

RepAir's field prototype has achieved 'technology readiness level' six (TRL6), which means it has been demonstrated to work, with the next level to demo in an operational environment.

The company's current focus is scaling up the technology behind the TRL6 field prototype to the larger commercial demo.

"It means designing the next generation of cells, stacks, producing them, designing and building systems including the various ancillary elements that are included in those systems, control and other aspects, producing them, and then the project," said Shiner.

He added that RepAir is collaborating with unnamed "large" EPC companies on the engineering, procurement, and construction of the commercial demo.

"We are also discussing with potential carbon storage partners and carbon utilization partners. We're going to complete the value chain," said Shiner.

Carbon credits

In parallel, the company is exploring options for generating carbon credits from its technology and said it has talked with Finland-based carbon registry Puro.earth and US-based Verra, as well as tech giant Microsoft on the buy-side.

"Basically, what we are focused on right now is the storage element. Once we have a good storage solution, we will be able to offer credits for potential customers," said Shiner, adding that the aim, and what potential customers want, is an "end-to-end solution".

The company is also exploring the potential for applying its technology to certain 'point source' applications for CO2 capture from some industrial production processes.

This would apply processes where conventional carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies, such as those are used in the oil and gas sector, are uneconomic to apply.

"Certain industrial applications, for example aluminium production, have emissions that include a relatively diluted CO2 compared with, for example, refineries where the traditional CCS technologies cannot be applied in an economically viable way," said Shiner.

"We have a solution here that can be very relevant to those applications. And we are now examining this with a couple of potential partners," he said.