From student idea to CO₂ capture system for industry

With the climate summit in full swing, the urgency is once again clear: CO₂ emissions must be drastically reduced. Technology can also help. CO₂ capture, for example, is a crucial piece of the puzzle in tackling the climate crisis. Coen van den Brand, founder of InAtmos, and his team are developing a CO₂ capture system for industries that are difficult to make sustainable. We spoke to the founder and his colleague, Vishal Venkatarangan, about the growth the company is experiencing. “We will definitely be on the market within three years,” says Van den Brand.

Lab coats on, safety goggles on. Together with Van den Brand and his colleagues, I walk to a lab setup at TU/e that involves both the university and InAtmos. In front of me is a glass cabin full of equipment, difficult to understand for non-technicians. Fortunately, Van den Brand is able to explain it well. “We focus on what is known as cryogenic CO₂ capture. We use cooling to isolate CO₂ from flue gas or other sources.” InAtmos' technology captures CO₂ from large installations such as boilers, furnaces, and combined heat and power plants. In the future, other gases can also be captured, such as process emissions, methane, nitrogen, or oxygen.

The machine can capture CO₂ from industries that are difficult to make sustainable, such as waste processors. This is desperately needed. Industry accounts for about one-fifth of all CO₂ emissions in Europe. So there is a lot to be gained here.

From idea to fully-fledged startup

Van den Brand's entrepreneurial journey began with CryoCOP, a collaboration between students from Wageningen, Delft, and Eindhoven. He was a co-founder. In 2022, CryoCOP reached an important milestone: the startup won the TU Delft Impact Contest and then the 4TU Impact Challenge. “That gave us a lot of exposure within the ecosystem and among investors.”

InAtmos, which grew directly out of CryoCOP, developed into a fully-fledged startup over the years. “It all started with about four people who volunteered to work on the project alongside their studies,” says Van den Brand. "Despite limited resources, we received positive responses. We now have a patent, a new name, and a lot of experience. “Personally, I see it as a milestone that this year we have grown into a project leader that brings together knowledge and market parties to innovate,” says the entrepreneur. Another recent milestone was the CCUS expo in Hamburg, where InAtmos gave a presentation and showcased its technology to an international audience. “We spoke to many people from the traditional CO₂ capture world and noticed a great deal of interest,” says the founder.

Scaling up: a new challenge

Van den Brand has been active in the world of CO₂ capture for many years. The situation is different for Vishal Venkatarangan, who started this year as a technical assistant at InAtmos. He recently graduated in chemical engineering from Delft University of Technology. As we sit down at a table at TU/e to talk about his work, he explains: "At InAtmos, I mainly focus on the technical part of the system, specifically the pre-treatment process of the gases. There are many challenges to overcome, but that's what gives me energy.“ Scaling up will be one of the biggest challenges in the coming period, he emphasizes. ”It's not simply a matter of making the reactor bigger or adding more material. Many other factors come into play, such as the sensitivity of the equipment on a larger scale."

“Moreover,” Van den Brand adds, “we cannot scale up on our own. We need partners to make this happen. Building stable and long-term collaborations is one of the most important challenges in the coming years.”

Collaborating, and more collaborating

The company is already collaborating at full speed. InAtmos is currently working closely with TU/e. At the university lab, I talk to Ivo Roghair, assistant professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. “Van den Brand is the driving force behind CryoVAL,” he says. "This is a collaboration between InAtmos, TU/e, the University of Twente, and EMI Twente. The project is investigating the entire CO₂ capture process: from pre-treatment and capture to storage.

The current installation in Eindhoven still operates under atmospheric pressure, but the goal is to process CO₂ in liquid form under high pressure, Roghair explains. "Converting CO₂ from solid to gas is relatively easy, but turning it into a liquid and working with it is much more complicated. There are still many questions, such as how exactly CO₂ behaves under high pressure. A larger demonstration plant is planned within one to two years.“

In addition to this research, InAtmos is also working on other methods for CO₂ capture. ”The differences are technical and difficult to explain, but essentially it revolves around variations in coolants and materials," says Van den Brand.

Left: Coen van den Brand. Middle: Vishal Venkatarangan. Left: Ivo Roghair. Credits: Bart van Overbeeke

Entering the market within three years

InAtmos's goal is to ultimately develop a single scalable product that can be adapted for different customers. “We may enter the market with other variants at a later stage.”

There is still plenty of work to be done in the coming years. Van den Brand points once more to the lab setup and concludes: “The initial lab results are promising. Our system integrations are unique and competitive in terms of energy consumption and costs. I predict that we will definitely enter the market within three years.”