Sucking up CO2Capturing CO2 with electrons.
Big Picture
Carbon dioxide makes up just 0.04% of air, which is why capturing it directly from the atmosphere is so hard. Strictly chemical processes are well understood, but most require serious energy to pass enough air through “carbon-sticky” chemicals and then unbind them with heat. Advances in electrochemistry and material science point to simpler processes driven primarily by electricity.
How it Works
Holy Grail’s direct air capture system removes CO2 from ambient air without any heat or pressure, just clean electricity. This dramatically simplifies the system architecture required, allowing Holy Grail to build compact modules that can be stacked together. The product of their process is permanently stored CO2 in a stable carbon-contained solid.
Unfair Advantage
Their approach is radically simple, slashing the heat and energy requirements typically associated with direct air capture. This leads to a very low minimum cost for stripping CO2 from the air. The tech lends itself well to a modular, manufacturable cell that could just as easily scrub CO2 at a household level as at an industrial site with cells piled on top of one another, and many use cases in between.
250
sq. inch cell
captures a US household’s annual emissions
NUNO PEREIRA CEO & CO-FOUNDER
Nuno, an industrial designer with a background in chemistry and materials science, built Holy Grail’s stack components from scratch.
Introducing Holy Grail
Medium
Holy Grail raises $2.7M seed fund to create modular carbon capture devices
TechCrunch
CO2 separation and transport via electrochemical methods
Journal of Electrochemical Society
Electrochemical separation and concentration of <1% carbon dioxide from nitrogen
Journal of Electrochemical Society