World’s First Machine That Sucks CO2 Out Of Atmosphere Starts Working In Zurich

Zurich-based Climeworks, an Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH)’s company aims to capture 1% of global CO2 emissions by 2025, and they have made a massive step towards the goal with the launch of their carbon dioxide-sucking plant ready for commercial use. The technology is known as Direct Air Capture (DAC), and has been designed by Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher to capture CO2 emissions in the atmosphere using a filter and low-grade heat to power the machine.

The first DAC plant has been installed on a waste recovery facility operated by the Hinwil municipal administration. The technology works by first depositing the carbon dioxide chemically on the filter surface. Once the filter is saturated, the CO2 can be separated at a temperature of 100°C (212°F), with the gas then redirected into cylinders and sold to customers in all sorts of industries such as commercial agriculture, automotive industry, food and beverage industries and the energy sector.

Climeworks already provides a continuous supply of CO2 in Hinwil using a 400 meters (437.4 yards) underground pipeline fixed to a greenhouse. The plant is operated by Gebrüder Meier Primanatura AG and uses CO2 to help grow the crops of tomatoes and cucumbers. DAC also provides around 900 tons of carbon dioxide per year to nearby greenhouses and call their plant a

“historic step for negative emissions technology.”

The project has been hailed worldwide since it is in line with the Paris climate agreement’s move to stop the global temperature rises within 2°C (35.6°F). Certain world leaders might not take the threat of global warming seriously, but until the time these kind of individual ventures are at work, we hope to be moving in the right direction.