In November 2023 Carbominer was announced as an awardee of the EIC Accelerator, a program that provides blended – grant and equity – funding for pre-commercial deep-tech ventures, with impact ideas, worldwide ambitions, and scientific innovation at their core. The project’s name is ‘Direct Air Capture for on-site CO2 utilization in greenhouses’ and it perfectly covers the end goal and mission that Carbominer seeks to address – to provide the indoor farming sector with an affordable and sustainable CO2 sourcing solution to promote plant growth.
The first six months of the grant project have been packed with critical milestones and much anticipated technology breakthroughs, which we shared with our partners and investor network in the dedicated Quarter Investor Update. In this article, we decided to sum up the main targets of the grant project, and the key achievements across the various verticals of the company work within the EIC Accelerator project framework.
EIC Accelerator funded project
Our EIC Accelerator project focuses on developing modular Direct Air Capture (DAC) systems for on-site CO2 utilization in greenhouses. We aim to bring Carbominer C-DAC systems, plug them into electricity, connect them with the farm’s pre-existing CO2 distribution system, and switch on the machine. Then, the CO2 is selectively captured from the air and supplied directly to the plants, enhancing their growth and overall farm productivity.
The ‘C’ in the C-DAC stands for ‘compact’, as we are building our solution modular and transportable, and were aiming to do so from the very project’s inception. Carbominer’s DAC systems are designed to reduce indoor farmers’ expenses while bringing them the great value of increased yield and reduced carbon footprint. This reduction comes from switching from traditional CO2 sourcing options, be it transportation of liquified carbon dioxide or CO2 generation on premises by burning fossil fuels (f.e. natural gas).
Key goals of the project include:
- optimizing technology with further R&D,
- upscaling our DAC systems to 50t and 250t,
- conducting pilot implementations to validate market demand.
And the expected outcomes of the project are exciting. The project results include increased crop yields, cost savings for the farmers, and most importantly – significant environmental benefits by making greenhouse operations more sustainable and efficient.
Carbominer’s DAC Technology Optimization
Our technology is one of our biggest assets and sources of pride. Having tested various well-known adsorbents thoughout 2020-2021, at the pre-seed stage, our technical team came up with the innovative two-part solution that allows for one of the lowest energy consumption levels in the sector. In short, we separated the capturing and regeneration processes into two units and conducted separate testing to ensure both processes were as efficient as possible. This approach also allowed us to guarantee the circularity of the materials and fluids inside the units, making up for water consumption intake.
Carbominer’s Direct Air Capture technology stands out from the crowd due to a truly unconventional combination of innovations. On the capturing stage, it combines dry and wet capture methods, enabling better efficiency compared to most known DAC technologies, that utilize only one of the methods. Whereas, on the regeneration stage, it uses electrochemistry regeneration, one of the most promising ways in the industry to release a lot of CO₂ with comparatively low energy consumption.
Since March 2024, we’ve made significant leaps in refining the capturing and regeneration processes:
Capturing Unit
We tested several approaches to adsorbent production, and initiated the assembling of activated fiber into adsorbent blocks – a crucial milestone in further cost reductions. Additionally, a new method for adsorbent preparation was developed and built, allowing us to conduct experiments and explore innovative techniques for activated fiber production.
Regeneration Unit
We are continuously improving the energy efficiency of our regeneration units with new materials and cell designs and proud ourselves with the energy consumption reduction leap that was made in the past 6 months. During this period we’ve conducted extensive testing on ultra-thin membranes and assembled two additional electrochemistry cell test benches to use for experiments on membrane selectivity improvement. Needless to say, the experimenting has always been our greatest passion.
IoT-Enabled Control System
As we strive to make our solution as client-oriented as possible, we keep ownership of the machines and maintain the DAC park autonomously. And as this use case demands, the development of a fully remote-controlling functionality was inevitable.
In the past six months, our CO2 production monitoring has evolved with an IoT system designed for real-time remote control.
Firstly, our technical team developed the controller requirements and reached out to manufacturers of industrial controllers, explaining our special needs. Once the controllers for CO2 and energy consumption have been assembled, and performance testing has begun. In parallel to this, we started to develop the cloud-based data infrastructure.
Project Communication Activities
During this half a year we worked hard to raise brand awareness by engaging in key conferences, appearing in media outlets, and engaging with the startup and tech communities worldwide. Our communication efforts were focused on increasing visibility across general climate tech and indoor farming industries, and positioning ourselves as an innovative and resilient team, that is not afraid of the risks and turns any challenge in the way into an opportunity.
1. Connecting with peers and investors
During the period, Nick Oseyko, Carbominer’s Founder, and Viktoria Oseyko, Carbominer’s CMO, represented Carbominer Ukraine at several leading industry tech and climate events. Highlights include participation in the deep-tech-focused Hello Tomorrow and climate-focused ChangeNOW conferences in Paris, tech- and climate-oriented Tech Summit in London and TNW Conference in Amsterdam, and general startup-investor events, like Wolves Summit, Warsaw Startup Club, UVCA Summit and Business Angel of the Year Awards in Poland.
Our participation in these events facilitated meaningful interactions with other founders, providing opportunities to share insights and discuss common challenges. As active residents, upon request from Campus leadership, we presented our startup’s path with its ups and downs, and shared our journey in obtaining EIC Accelerator funding. In a way, we became ambassadors of the EIC funding schemes and encouraged talented deep-tech startups from our networks to give it a shot to gain support for their inspiring vision.
2. Maximising media attention with newsworthy events
Needless to say, that after announcement of EIC Accelerator funding media’s interest in Carbominer has grown significantly, both nationally and internationally. Another important event happened in June, after receiving an acknowledgment from Google for Startups Ukraine Support Fund – the award for innovative impact startup, with at least partially Ukrainian leadership. As with the news about EIC Accelerator funding, the association with the powerful brand resulted in awareness spike and significant inbound media interest in our venture.
We also received industry and social media mentions after releasing an article and video in cooperation with Greencubator, a Ukrainian non-profit organization focused on supporting green tech startups. And just recently, due to this very post, Carbominer was featured in the EBRD blog publication and social media.
Other accomplishments
Overall, our achieved project milestones include developing the Data Management Plan, Dissemination and Exploitation plan, and updating the Risk Management Plan according to the current situation with the industry supplies and local situation in Ukraine. We also conducted hiring for the most acutely needed positions such as an in-house accountant and electrochemistry tech consultant.
Our procurement team initiated negotiations with several membrane manufacturers to overcome delays in procurement and signed an NDA with a global company to support us in future DAC systems production. Our IP protection approach remains diligent and proactive, as we prepare to apply for more patents on the technology innovations.
As we look ahead, we will continue to focus on refining our technology and expanding partnerships to bring the Carbominer’s modular Direct Air Capture technology to Indoor Farmers for better growth and profits. In case you’re interested in piloting our innovative solution, we invite you to reach out to us!
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“Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Innovation Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.”