Pioneering carbon removal company Skytree announced that its direct air capture (DAC) system called Stratus will be part of an innovative Power-to-X project that will leverage this technology to transform sunlight into e-fuels.
Envisioned to create a pathway for storing excess renewable electricity into products like e-fuels or chemicals, the Power-to-X project is being developed by Forschungszentrum Jülich, who recognized a trusted partner in Skytree and their modular DAC solution.
As part of this initiative, the Stratus DAC system will serve to capture CO2 directly from the atmosphere, which will then be combined with water in a process that powers the creation of e-fuels or base chemicals.
E-fuels are liquid fuels that are renewable, CO2-neutral, and can be produced in desert environments with the help of solar energy.
The Stratus DAC units will capture atmospheric carbon dioxide for the production of green methanol—a fuel that can be safely stored and transported to energy-demanding regions, where it can be used without generating new CO2 emissions.
In the initial phase of this collaboration, the Stratus System and its Arid Climate Core DAC technology will be deployed for testing at Jülich’s Germany-based facilities.
Once installed there, it will be paired with a compact CO2 liquefaction technology that will enable the on-site conversion into liquid methanol.
A key advantage in this collaboration is the ability of the Stratus DAC unit to supply both the CO2 and water required for methanol production, making it suitable for regions where these resources might be limited. This mechanism only needs cheap renewable energy to be able to power the whole process.
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The partnering companies intend to start testing this approach in Germany in Q1 of 2026.
After a successful validation, this system will be deployed to a desert location in Africa, where it will leverage the abundance of solar power potential to evaluate performance under extreme heat, dryness, and remote conditions.
The results from this pilot will be made publicly available to serve as a blueprint for other companies that choose to venture into integrating DAC technology into the solar-to-fuel value chain.
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