Turn back the clock on climate change, leaving future generations with a cleaner and more sustainable environment. This is the challenge of CarpeCarbona Turin startup that is preparing to build the first Italian plant for capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air.
An ambitious project, recently successful a loan of over 1.7 million euros from Tech4Planet (CDP Venture), 360 Capital, Investors Club And PiedmontNext (of which Finpiemonte is part), so as to complete the development of the technology and implement it.
On the other hand, the company is distinguishing itself as a pioneer in the sector by developing a technology-based system DAC (Direct Air Capture), effectively changing the paradigm: the intent is no longer to reduce emissions, but to directly lower carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If previously we aimed for zero as the net result, today it is only the starting point. “There removal of CO2 it doesn’t happen at the point where it is released into the atmosphere – he says Giuliano Antoniciello, CEO and co-founder together with 4 other partners — so there isn’t a filter on the chimney of a factory, but simply the same air we breathe every day is filtered. We are currently designing the pilot plant, which will begin construction at the end of 2024, probably in southern Italy. The goal is to inaugurate it by the summer of 2026.”
At the moment what limits the scale-up of this technology is the large energy consumption, but the startup is also perfecting this aspect: «We managed to lower operating expenses by 90%. — adds Antoniciello — but we will improve further, using only renewable energy. If today it takes at least a thousand dollars to eliminate one ton of CO2, our goal is to bring the figure down to 100 dollars.” A step at a time. First we will check how the system will perform: «We know that the different components taken individually work. The challenge is to understand how they act in real world conditions, to know what needs to be adjusted. This is an advantage of our system: the effects are easily measurable, unlike forestation for example. The various measurements will then tell us more about operation, consumption and impact: at that point we will be able to design plants on a commercial scale, therefore very large, of tens or even hundreds of thousands of tons per year.”
The new factory that will be built by the startup, which today it can count on 13 employees and a branch in Corso Valdocco, will start by removing, in a year, just under thousand tonstransforming carbon dioxide into inert and safe rock.
But it’s only the beginning. «We actually need a technological leap compared to what exists today and that is what we are trying to do. Sooner or later the removal of atmospheric CO2 will be regarded as just another waste management and disposal service. What has accumulated in the atmosphere for so long will have to be treated and disposed of.” And there’s no time to waste. Suffice it to say that today various human activities issue annually around 40 billion tonnes of CO2.
