Ukraine-based startup Carbominer piloted its transportable machine with an international industrial partner

KYIV, UKRAINE – The Carbominer’s team has completed a pilot of a 1.2t Direct Air Capture (DAC) machine with the largest international building materials group in Vyshneve, Kyiv region, Ukraine. The pilot’s goal was to serve as proof-of-concept for Carbominer’s DAC technology, measure its key performance indicators, and obtain a third-party validation report.

Direct Air Capture of CO2 combined with durable storage creates a carbon removal process and is a proven means for companies to reach their net-zero goals. Carbominer is one of a few companies in the field to offer transportable DAC modules for local CO2 capture. The technology and expertise to store CO2 permanently in concrete

The results of this two-week pilot have shown that Carbominer’s DAC technology works, providing little water usage and higher than expected CO2 purity (99.5%). The full pilot report was delivered at the end of February.

“While Carbominer’s Direct Air Capture technology has been in place since September 2021, this is our first pilot with an industry partner. The reason for this is that we aimed to test-run the DAC machine in-house first and fine-tune it where there was a need for improvement,” – states Carbominer’s Founder Nick Oseyko.

Within its first two years of operation, Carbominer raised $500,000 and built the first MVP Direct Air Capture module. The team subsequently secured another $400,000 from Ukrainian VC Fund SMRK.

The companies’ collaboration started from Barcelona-based accelerator Cleantech Camp by InnoEnergy in the summer of 2021. The pilot to extract CO2 out of the atmosphere was supported by the industrial partner’s Innovation department and the pilot contract was signed in January 2022. The Russian aggression in Ukraine influenced the pilot’s kick-off date, but once the danger to the Kyiv region was levelled, Carbominer returned to the full-blown operation.

Carbominer is a 3-year-old Ukrainian climate tech startup that has developed new modular Direct Air Capture technology to help companies decarbonize and achieve net zero. The startup’s main competitive advantage is capturing CO2 using intermittent renewable electricity. Also, Carbominer uses a combination of the dry and wet approaches to CO2 capture, which allows for decreasing costs even further.

Carbominer plans to raise a $1.5M seed round this year, and such a third-party validation is very much appraised by investors in the company’s network. The round will be used to finalise R&D and build a bigger DAC machine of 46 tons/year.