Climate change is an ever-present threat to our modern world. With the burning of fossil fuels being a major catalyst for atmospheric changes, many researchers find their primary focus to be on harnessing renewable energy resources.
Others, such as David Kwabi, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, choose to pursue technologies that can help mitigate the past and present effects of climate change.
After years of research and development, Kwabi launched a startup, BlueShift Carbon, Inc., with the help of Innovation Partnerships to further develop his electrochemical carbon capture technology for commercial-scale use.
“Our society is heavily reliant on fossil fuels for energy, and the transition to renewables isn’t happening fast enough to avoid the most severe consequences of climate change,” Kwabi said. “We also need low-cost technology for pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere.”
Kwabi’s technology uses organic molecules that are attached to porous electrodes to remove CO2 from seawater, which absorbs nearly 25% of our carbon emissions, and thereby indirectly separates it from the atmosphere.
“We’ve developed a system that can reversibly swing the pH of seawater, so as to remove CO2 from it and generate an alkaline stream of CO2-free seawater that can then draw down CO2 from the atmosphere,” Kwabi explained.
The design utilizes textile-based electrodes that are made on top of common materials such as wool felt, which lowers the overall cost of the system. Kwabi’s design also keeps proton storage on the electrode surface, separate from the CO2-capturing phase, which allows for better optimization and increased stability in practical applications.
Additionally, Kwabi said the technology offers a lower energetic cost than other approaches that have been proposed for marine carbon removal. Rather than relying on heat for power, his electrochemical system can be driven by renewable energy sources like wind and solar power, which promotes efficiency and sustainability.
Kwabi was first approached by an entrepreneur in December 2023 about partnering on a startup to license and further develop his carbon capture technology.
Eventually, BlueShift Carbon Inc. intends to develop a pilot facility that will initially pull 1 ton per year of CO2 from the atmosphere and facilitate its sale as carbon credits to interested parties.
“The plan is to set up a pilot plant within the next year to show that this process can be scaled from the small amounts of CO2 that we pull out in the lab, to something that is more commercially relevant,” Kwabi said.
The low-cost, low-energy, high-efficiency nature of Kwabi’s electrochemical design differentiates it from other approaches and makes it a strong candidate for commercial use.
Founding a startup company to facilitate the development of Kwabi’s technology was a complex process. Jeremy Nelson, director of physical sciences licensing, said Innovation Partnerships aided Kwabi through every stage to increase the impact of his work.
“Innovation Partnerships’ role has been to support the commercialization of the technology,” he said. “This includes filing patent applications to protect the invention, supporting Prof. Kwabi and an entrepreneur to found a startup company, and licensing the associated intellectual property rights to the startup.”
Additionally, Kwabi worked with the University of Michigan’s Global CO2 Initiative to perform techno-economic analysis, which helped his team understand the cost of his electrochemical approach compared to other established approaches to carbon capture.
Kwabi’s technology, which was developed in partnership with Trisha Andrew, professor of chemistry and material science and engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has the potential to make a significant impact on the reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere.
“Experts worldwide agree that new technological solutions to address atmospheric CO2 are needed,” Nelson said. “The technology developed by Kwabi and Andrew has the potential to play a meaningful role in the reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere. While others have recognized the potential to address this issue through direct ocean removal of carbon, it has been difficult to engineer practical solutions. The UM-UMass approach is potentially the solution to this challenge.”
Kwabi said the purchase of his carbon capture technology represents the University of Michigan’s commitment to supporting the development of technologies that bring positive change to society.
“I think the launch of this startup reinforces U-M’s standing as an incubator for technology that serves the common good,” Kwabi said. “Mechanical engineers build systems that can solve big challenges, and hopefully, our electrochemical system can help move the needle in the right direction on the climate problem.”
