A huge congratulations to all finalists:

CATEGORY 1:
CCS – Carbon Capture and Storage

2024 Winner and Finalist: 

Ardent

Ardent (formerly known as Compact Membrane Systems (CMS)) pioneers advanced membrane technologies to accelerate decarbonization and transform the global industrial and energy landscape.

Ardent’s state-of-the-art Facilitated Transport Membranes (FTM) give it a patented ‘unfair advantage.’ Unlike conventional high-pressure separation methods, Ardent’s technology relies on the chemistry of the membrane itself for energy-efficient separation. The result is a low cost, fully electrified, and easy to use solution with versatile applications for today and tomorrow.

Ardent’s Optiperm™ platform holds the key to unlock cost-effective and energy-efficient point-source carbon capture across heavy industries like cement, steel and petchem that are underserved by conventional carbon capture and other decarbonization pathways. Ardent’s modular, bolt-on separation technology addresses the cost-efficiency and scalability issues of incumbent solutions, delivering a proven, scalable, energy-efficient, and cost-effective solution that can decarbonize heavy industry at the Gigaton scale.

Ardent has over 30 years of manufacturing experience across power generation, industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and O&G operations. Ardent has a proven track record of taking new technologies from the lab to the field, partnering with global leaders like Chevron, Pfizer, and Braskem to deliver end-to-end solutions at commercial scale.

Find out more >> www.ardenttechnologies.com

RepAir Carbon

Driven by a novel electrochemical cell technology, our next-generation, carbon capture innovation is affordable, easily scalable, and energy-efficient, consuming 70% less energy as compared to conventional solutions. Our solution operates entirely on electricity, eliminating all heat-related issues commonly encountered with conventional Direct Air Capture (DAC) and Diluted Point Source solutions. This enables exceptionally low energy consumption for direct air capture at 600kWh per ton and for diluted point source 300kWh per ton.

As a result, RepAir can offer high-integrity carbon credits to off-takers, such as Microsoft, at an affordable price, extending the same affordability to point source as well. RepAir’s low energy consumption and efficient, continuous process, leads to minimal operating expenditures (OpEx) and its modular design is built for scaling up, resulting in low capital expenditures (CapEx). This combination positions RepAir for large-scale production and rapid global adoption, facilitating swift and sustainable implementation.

Projected levelized capture costs are $70 per ton at the megaton scale and $50 per ton at the gigaton scale.

How it works:

RepAir’s DAC technology is based on proprietary electrochemical cell technology, requiring 70% less energy (0.6MWh/tCO2) than its competitors. Similar to battery technology, the process utilizes two electrodes positioned on either side of a selective separator, forming a cell. These cells are ‘stacked’ to multiply the carbon-removal capacity. Atmospheric air is drawn into the cathode, where an electrical current generates hydroxide ions that bind to CO2 molecules, forming carbonate and bicarbonate ions. Only these ions cross the separator into the anode, wherein the binding process is undone, the hydroxides are consumed, and pure CO2 gas is drawn out.

Continuous carbon removal for optimized energy efficiency is achieved through systematic cell polarity switching every few hours.

Find out more >> www.repair-carbon.com

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CATEGORY 2:
Alternative Fuels – Biomass, Hydrogen, Wind and Solar etc.

2024 Winner and Finalist: 

Matteco

The main barrier to large-scale deployment of green hydrogen is the high cost of production. With ambitious targets for installed electrolysis capacity to reach net-zero by 2030, significant efforts are needed to make electrolysis more efficient.

This is where we come in. Matteco is a materials technology company focused on new solutions to make hydrogen production cost competitive. We have developed next-generation materials to decarbonize the economy through the mass deployment of green hydrogen in industries that are difficult to electrify.

Our technology is setting a new performance standard in alkaline and AEM electrolysis. Our first innovation goes right to the heart of the production process and green hydrogen value chain: PGM-free advanced catalysts, catalytic coatings and electrodes, key elements in water electrolysis.

Matteco’s patented materials are transforming the economics of green hydrogen production by reducing operating costs through up to 30% reduction in energy consumption and reducing capital costs by enabling up to 3x higher current densities.

This means that the same hydrogen production can be achieved with smaller, cheaper stacks. Or more hydrogen can be produced with the same stack size, optimizing the capital investment for hydrogen production facilities. In this way, Matteco helps electrolyzer manufacturers and plant designers to achieve their targets for the levelized-cost-of-hydrogen (LCOH).

The company is based in Valencia, Spain and is part of the Zubi Group. It was co-founded by Zubi Labs and a group of scientists in August 2023 after a decade of research. It is currently expanding its manufacturing capacity to reach GW scale by Q2 2024.

Find out more >> www.matteco.com

Luminescent

Luminescent is the world’s most efficient heat engine, and the only solution that turns waste heat into zero- emission electricity with a rapid ROI of 1-3 years.

Find out more >> www.luminescentpower.com

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CATEGORY 3:
Circularity – CO2 reuse, CO2 utilisation technologies

2024 Winner and Finalist: 

Cocoon

Cocoon is building carbon capture for heavy industry and low carbon construction materials for the builders of tomorrow. Cocoon has developed a patent-pending process that upcycles underutilised steel slags into a high-value supplementary cementitious material, while mineralising CO2 from a flue gas or already stored source. The technology has the potential to solve a looming supply/demand challenge within the market for supplementary cementitious materials, as traditional feedstocks such as blast furnace slag and fly ash decrease in supply, while demand is driving prices up. Cocoon is enabling the steel and cement industries to decarbonise in sync.

Find out more >> www.cocooncarbon.com

neustark AG

neustark was founded in 2019 as an ETH Zurich spin-off by Johannes Tiefenthaler and Valentin Gutknecht, both of whom were, at that time, looking into the technological and commercial aspects of CO2 storage in mineral waste streams, with an initial focus on recycled concrete aggregates (RCA).

neustark aims to create a scalable carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solution with a high degree of permanence that can contribute to achieving national and international climate goals, as well as promoting circularity practices, particularly in the construction sector. Through their technology, they capture and mineralize biogenic CO2 within waste materials such as recycled concrete, thus removing the CO2 and storing it for thousands of years. neustark’s technology injects CO2 into concrete granules, triggering a mineralization reaction that transforms the CO2 into calcium carbonate. The partnering recycler can use the CO2 -enriched granules as per its usual process to produce recycled concrete or other materials for buildings or roads. Concrete recyclers can create an additional revenue stream by earning a payback from the sale of carbon removal certificates obtained from our process. Therefore, their project not only contributes to corporate and national climate targets thanks to a first-of-a-kind bio-CCUS value chain, but also further promotes the development of circularity practices within the construction sector.

To date (April 2024), they have permanently removed over 1500 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere and safely stored it in RCA, slurry water and other mineral waste streams. Benefitting from this climate impact are also the buyers of our certificates, i.e., companies with ambitious climate targets such as Microsoft and UBS.

Find out more >> www.neustark.com