German Direct Air Capture (DAC) developer DACMA, along with Spanish energy company Repsol, announced the successful launch of an industrialized DAC system in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
The project, initially introduced in 2022, has recently reached its final phase, where DACMA completed their end of the development, handing the project over to their clients from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS).
After being built in Hamburg, Germany, the five-unit DAC system was shipped to Brazil, where it was installed and effectively put into operation on the PUCRS IPR campus in Porto Alegre.
With an annual capture capacity of 300 tonnes of carbon dioxide, this facility represents the first of its kind in the region of South America.
This milestone builds on the experience gained from a prototype DAC system, activated on the site by DACMA in April 2024.
With a 24/7 work mode and a capture capacity of 15 tonnes of CO2 per year, this system served to demonstrate the feasibility of the technology, allowing for its scale up to larger proportions.
In a broader perspective, DACMA is on a mission to expand their carbon removal capacity to 5,000 tonnes of CO2 annually through a DAC project they are working on in Salvador de Bahia.
The company is on a steady path towards making this vision a reality, with the project already having carried out a feasibility study, along with a signed strategic Memorandum of Understanding that will promote its development.
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In October 2023, DACMA welcomed Repsol Energy Venture S.A. as a new shareholder.
Commenting on the recent achievement, Mica Taborga Claure, Senior Researcher-DAC Technical Lead at Repsol, commented, “Thrilled to share that a 3-year journey at Repsol, focused on developing a Negative Emissions Open R&D Framework in Brazil, reached a milestone with the start-up of a 300-ton/year DAC demo unit (FOAK in South America)!”
She added, “What seemed impossible 3 years ago is now a reality—showing that technologies like DAC can help build a net-zero future.”
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