Avnos, in partnership with Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) and with funding provided by the Department of Energy, began its first operational commercial pilot project in Bakersfield, California for its Hybrid Direct Air Capture (HDAC) technology.
The HDAC technology is designed for carbon dioxide removal, and Avnos claims that its HDAC pilot will deliver the world’s first water-positive Direct Air Capture (DAC) solution.
In its system, Avnos inverted the water paradigm in DAC, producing 5 tons of distilled water per ton of CO2 captured. As a result, the pilot will capture approximately 30 tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide and produce 150 tons of water per year.
"Removing legacy carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere is essential to addressing the negative effects of our changing climate, one of the most pressing issues of our lifetime. Doing so without further strain on our natural resources is something that the team at Avnos has worked tirelessly to achieve,” said Will Kain, CEO at Avnos.
Based on research from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the HDAC technology has updated various areas of DAC.
Capturing water from the atmosphere helps Avnos to leverage a moisture-swing CO2 adsorbent material to eliminate the need for heat input and reduce energy consumption by more than 50% as compared to other DAC technologies. These features reduce operating costs, boost resource efficiency, and make HDAC robust in more geographies, all while generating an additional value stream.
“The ability to scale carbon management projects while advancing the underlying technologies could be critical to achieving the state’s ambitious goal of sequestering 100 million metric tons of CO2 by 2045,” said Neil Navin, Chief Clean Fuels Officer at SoCalGas. “Carbon management, if developed at scale, could help reduce carbon emissions, improve air quality, and represents a tremendous opportunity for economic development and the creation of high-quality jobs.”
This project is followed by an $80 million collaboration between Avnos, ConocoPhillips, JetBlue Technology Ventures, the corporate venture capital division of JetBlue, and Shell Ventures, the U.S. venture capital arm of Shell, to implement Avnos' distinctive approach.
