While CO₂ is often perceived as waste, there is a large demand for CO₂ as a commodity.
CO₂ capture from air provides a solution for on-site supply of CO₂ for various applications, including:

Greenhouse fertilization CO₂ enrichment in a greenhouse’s atmosphere can increase the crop yield by up to 30%.
 
Wastewater treatment Alkaline wastewater can be neutralized with CO₂ in an environmentally friendly and cost effective way.
 
CO₂ cleaning CO₂ is used as solvent for various cleaning processes.
 
Food and beverage industry Large amounts of CO₂ are used by the food and beverage industry,
for instance for freeze drying, conservation and carbonation of drinks and a variety of other processes.

Greenhouse fertilization with CO₂

In the first phase, Climeworks will provide CO₂ for the European greenhouse fertilization market. The required amounts of CO₂ that need to be injected into the atmosphere of a greenhouse can be extracted from the air by a CO₂ capture plant located directly next to the greenhouse as shown below.

Closed Carbon Cycle

In the mid- to long-term, CO₂ captured by Climeworks technology will be used for the production of synthetic liquid fuels from renewable energy sources. These fuels can be used as an energy supply for the transportation sector. In combination with fuel synthesis, capturing CO₂ from the atmosphere provides the only feasible method of creating a closed carbon cycle (see schematic below):

Upon burning of liquid fuels in a car or a plane, CO₂ is emitted into the atmosphere. It is then extracted back from the air by a CO₂ capture plant and converted back to liquid fuels with renewable energy input. By the end of this decade, the fuel synthesis step will be available on a commercial scale, which makes air capture of CO₂ the missing element in the cycle.

In such a system, the CO₂ is not the source of energy, but it is rather an energy storage medium. The storage of renewable energy in synthetic liquid fuels is therefore an alternative to storing it by means of batteries or hydrogen. The advantage of this concept is that almost all of the existing infrastructure for the transportation system (gas stations, tanks, gasoline engines, etc.) can continue to be used without an extensive and costly replacement of the energy supply chain.

Thereby, Climeworks technology will contribute to the solution of the energy storage problem associated with renewable energy sources with fluctuating energy output.

Greenhouse Fertilisation

A CO₂ capture plant will take up about 1% of a greenhouse's ground area and can increase the crop yield by up to 30%.

Renewable Synthetic Fuels

CO₂ capture from ambient air is the missing element in a closed carbon cycle for the production of synthetic liquid fuels from renewable energy sources.