Susteon Inc., a North Carolina-based decarbonization startup, is developing innovations in the field of direct air capture (DAC) technology with support from the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL).
The company is testing and researching DAC features that could contribute to a system able to continuously capture atmospheric CO2, converting it into valuable products.
Back in 2023, Susteon Inc. was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as one of the nine recipients of funding provided by a $45 million carbon reduction fund.
Since then, the company has been focused on refining and optimizing DAC systems, creating five different projects with management help from the NETL.
Their work falls in line with the Department’s Carbon Negative Shot target of lowering the cost of capturing and storing carbon dioxide at gigaton scales to less than $100 per net metric ton of CO2 equivalent.
Supported by a Small Business Innovation Research grant, Susteon created their first project, centered around developing dual-function materials (DFMs) for both carbon capture and utilization into valuable products.
Derived from flue gas treating mechanisms, the DFMs were optimized to be effective in DAC applications.
With their porous solid material structure, these components contain a combination of an adsorbent and a catalyst, demonstrating high carbon capacity in DAC conditions, which increases further in the presence of atmospheric moisture in laboratory experiments.
From that point on, Susteon developed a novel DAC technology powered by high-capacity structured sorbents.
Relevant: NETL To Help Develop Standards For Direct Air Capture Industry
By examining solutions for key challenges in practical DAC implementation, like increasing carbon capacity and absorption rates, the project team developed a process for structured supports, creating a bench-scale testing unit.
This success, in turn, resulted in the creation of a validated process model and crucial engineering data that can be used for future DAC scale-up, switching the team’s attention to scaling up the continuous operation into an integrated bench-scale system, an effort that is currently ongoing.
As Susteon continues to refine the high-capacity structured sorbents, its team is also exploring the use of DAC carbon and CO2-free hydrogen production to create a carbon-negative methanol production system.
Read more: Aviation Climate Taskforce Gives $400,000 Research Grant to Susteon
