Hello world, we’re AirMyne
We’re scaling high-quality carbon removal through Direct Air Capture — for a cooler future.
For the past two years, we’ve been quietly building a next-generation Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology. We’re excited to formally announce ourselves to the world, and share what we’ve been up to.
Since we launched in May 2022 out of Y Combinator, we’ve been heads-down on engineering a Direct Air Capture system. Though we’re currently capturing kilograms of carbon dioxide from our Berkeley R&D facility, we aspire to make a meaningful impact on the climate crisis in the years to come – which means building the largest facilities we can, and scaling to remove millions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere as quickly as possible, at the lowest possible cost.
We’re excited about our technology, which we believe unlocks a new path for the future of high-quality carbon removal. Our system has been carefully designed to sidestep real-world barriers to scaling up. We’ve thought through everything from integrating with practical energy sources, to selecting a low-cost and easily procurable capture chemistry, to optimizing for a safe and simple plant design.
Carbon removal will be critical in averting climate disaster
We know that no single technology will solve the climate crisis.
It’s become clear however, that averting the worst impacts of climate change will require not only rapid decarbonization, but removing and locking away billions of tons of existing atmospheric CO2 in the decades to come.
There are a number of different carbon dioxide removal (CDR) methods being developed globally, and we believe that each method has an important role to play. DAC, coupled with sequestration, is a particularly compelling solution within this portfolio. It is one of the only CDR approaches that is both measurable and permanent, which ensures that any CO2 removed is locked away for thousands of years, and is readily quantifiable. DAC also provides a vital feedstock to several decarbonization technologies being developed, like Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) and low-carbon concrete.
Liquid solvent upstream, low-temperature heat-based downstream
Image: Bart (Sr. Engineering Manager) and Jun (Chemical Engineer), inspecting one of our 30+ prototypes
We designed our process by first thinking about what a megaton DAC facility should look like from an industrial perspective, and then working backwards.
We chose to use a simple, two-step process, with the goal of reducing cost and complexity in our future plants. In the first step, fans pull air into a mechanical structure called a contactor, where it mixes with a proprietary AirMyne capture chemistry. This liquid chemistry binds with the CO2 in the air. In the second step, the CO2-rich chemistry is pumped to a stripping column, where low-pressure steam is used to release a high-purity CO2 gas stream that can be passed to utilization or sequestration partners.
We selected a liquid chemistry because at industrial scale, liquids are much easier to move and handle than solids. We also chose chemical inputs that are benign, low-cost, and can be procured just about anywhere in the world, knowing that these elements will be essential to building DAC to be economical at scale.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we designed our process to be powered primarily by low-temperature heat. This means we can flexibly tap into any source of low-carbon energy, such as waste heat or electricity, as we demonstrate and improve our process. It also means we can integrate with energy sources like geothermal, which offers us a realistic roadmap for AirMyne’s DAC process to reach million-ton-per year scales without the land-use requirements or second-order rid challenges of relying solely on solar or wind to power our processes.
Launched via Y Combinator by deep tech industry veterans
Launched via Y Combinator in 2022, and now backed by the likes of Alumni Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, Impact Science Ventures, Another Brain, EMLES, Soma Capital, Wayfinder, and others (including some stellar angel investors, like Justin Hamilton), we’ve raised $6.9M in Seed funding. This allowed us to build our 20 person team of engineers and scientists, as well as problem-solvers across business development, deployment, and operations. We chose Berkeley, California as our home base, and are thrilled to be joined by UC Berkeley interns that bring incredible energy to the team, and UC Berkeley faculty advisors that counsel us in fluid- and aero-dynamics.
We also understand the importance of industrial experience in bringing DAC to scale. Sudip and Mark, our co-founders, bring a combined 40+ years of experience in inventing, commercializing, and scaling up solutions in the chemicals industry. Sudip spent much of his career at Honeywell, where he co-invented a low-global warming refrigerant now used in vehicles all over the world. While at BASF, Mark helped scale a subsidiary company (Precision Microchemicals) that was acquired for $90M, and co-invented chemicals used in the manufacturing of Silicon Carbide power electronics for EVs and 5G applications. Under Sudip & Mark’s leadership, we’ve built a team spanning reaction and mechanical engineering, automation and sensing, and commercial functions needed to begin bringing Direct Air Capture to scale.
We’re also thrilled that Valerie Wilson joined us last year as our Head of Deployment. She has almost 20 years of experience in oil & gas and sequestration, and is leading our efforts to scale to our first deployment site. Her background helps AirMyne understand what it takes to safely transport, sequester, and monitor CO2, as well as how to design, plan, and construct industrial scale facilities. This gives us a leg up in scaling up our own facilities, but also in engaging with sequestration partners.
Image: AirMyne team (full team not pictured)
As a team, we prioritize two things: building prototypes, and building trust with infrastructural partners, community members, and future customers. We believe that beyond building a rock-solid engineering solution, in an industry that suffers from an ever-inflating hype cycle, trust and transparency will be key to making megaton removal a reality.
The road to megaton removal
In the two years since we raised Seed funding, we’re proud of what we’ve achieved as a scrappy team of 20. Some highlights include:
Hitting kg/day capture scale & reducing our energy requirement by over 100x
Covering our process under 3 fully granted patents
Working with a sequestration partner (Class VI permit applications submitted) in the San Joaquin Delta region, close to our Berkeley HQ
Delivering canisters of CO2 to utilization companies CarbonBuilt & Rubi Laboratories
Winning selection in 2 Department of Energy DAC Hubs, including Fervo’s Red Rocks hub & the CALDAC hub in San Joaquin Valley
Image: Jun (Chemical Engineer) and Gulnar (Commercial Lead) handing off our first canister of CO2 to the CarbonBuilt team in Los Angeles
With some of these milestones under our belt, we’re laser-focused on further optimizing our cost and energy requirements. We’re also planning for our first real-world deployment – our “pilot 1”, which will allow us to prove our system works under field conditions, while continuing to iterate on our core technology.
If you’re curious about carbon removal, please don’t hesitate to reach out, or follow us on LinkedIn – we love chatting about carbon dioxide removal (CDR), DAC, and all things climate. We’re hiring a summer intern to work on Aspen Plus modeling and hands-on optimization of our desorption process – if that sounds like you, please reach out to our Science Lead Derek Popple at derek@airmyne.com. And finally, if you’re interested in securing AirMyne Carbon Credits, reach out to us via our Contact Us form.
