Zurich-born air-capture giant Climeworks has signed a collaboration and supply agreement with Vancouver’s Svante Technologies, a fellow carbon capture provider that was earlier this month named one of the world’s top cleantech companies.
The two firms have agreed to jointly plan the supply of Svante’s contactor blocks for three major Climeworks projects, according to a statement released, intending to lead to a commercial-scale supply agreement.
“We’ve been closely collaborating with Climeworks over the past three years, and because of that proximity, we felt comfortable entering into this kind of arrangement,” explains Svante CEO Claude Letourneau.
With Svante’s nano-engineered filters inside, their flagship regenerative rotary contactors—known as rotary adsorption machines or “RAMs”—can capture thousands of tonnes CO2 emissions per day.
“Delivering large-scale direct air capture required us to approach this collaboration with flexibility on the development of project specifications while retaining rigorous accountability for the success of the overall project,” continued Letourneau.
According to Letourneau, Svante is in the final stages of building its commercial filter manufacturing facility, The Centre of Excellence for Carbon Capture and Removal, in Vancouver.
“The combination of our advanced technologies represents a significant step forward in the nascent direct air capture industry, playing a critical role in meeting the world’s net-zero ambitions,” Letourneau says.
If finalized, the agreement with Climeworks would take up a significant portion of the Centre’s capacity.
“We are focusing on the massive growth of our carbon removal technology to create climate impact,” says Jan Wurzbacher, who cofounded Climeworks with Christoph Gebald in 2009.
“Svante is one of the key players in the ecosystem to support us in our journey to scale to a gigaton capacity,” the co-CEO stated.
In addition to the 2024 Global Cleantech 100, Svante is on the XPRIZE Foundation’s XB100.
Svante was launched out of Brett Henkel’s Burnaby garage in 2007.
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