French startup Aerleum has developed a promising technology that can pull carbon dioxide from the air and convert it into methanol, which is not only then used to fuel cargo ships but also serves as a base chemical in producing aviation fuel.
Engineers at Aerleum designed a proprietary reactor, combining CO2 capture and conversion in a single device. There’s a sponge-like material inside used to adsorb CO2 concentrations up to 15 percent, making it effective for both direct air capture and point source carbon capture, in which CO2 is captured directly from industrial exhausts.
The company’s proprietary sponge-like material takes about one hour to pull in as much carbon dioxide as it can hold and about 20 minutes to complete the conversion to methanol. After that, the reaction begins another cycle of adsorbing CO2 from the air. Depending on the size of the reactor, the amount of methanol produced is as much as CO2 captured.
With this innovative solution, Aerleum has received the EDF Pulse Award from the French utility company Électricité de France, which is for highlighting the efforts of start-ups, innovators, and entrepreneurs with ideas that could help to move the energy sector towards net-zero carbon emissions. Here, the company’s technology could help offset the emissions from transportation sectors that have long time dependent on liquid fuels.
Currently, most methanol originates from fossil fuels like natural gas which also produces CO2, causing climate change. Aerleum’s new process could help reduce as well as offset the emissions and mitigate the CO2, which is output from other industrial processes.
However, methanol created from thin air is more expensive than conventional, fossil-fuel-based methanol which is also the major challenge that Aerleum must solve. IDTechEx, a market research firm that specializes in emerging technologies, pointed out that sustainable aviation fuel is currently 10 times as costly as conventional jet fuel.
To address this, the company is conducting scale, and the use of green hydrogen generated using renewable sources such as solar and wind. In addition, its cost-cutting measures will also be aided by incentives from national governments in the form of tax credits and aviation fuel production credits.
According to Aerleum CEO Sebastien Fiedorow, the company’s goal is to build a first-of-its-kind factory whose output will be about 300,000 tonnes of methanol, which equates to just 380 million liters per year by 2030.
