Investment of the month: SeaO₂ fights climate change and restores the ocean
Each month, we interview a startup or company that has recently received an investment. This month: SeaO₂.
Published on December 6, 2024
As editor-in-chief, Aafke is ultimately responsible for the content of our platform, but she also likes to get into the pen herself. She is also responsible for the content of our events. She likes nothing better than explaining complicated things in an accessible way and is fond of telling the story of the people behind the technology.
Working on the climate problem while restoring the ocean. That is the ambitious mission of startup SeaO₂, which filters CO₂ from the sea with a plug-and-play solution. Their pilot installation on the Afsluitdijk—the size of a container—can filter 25 tons of CO2 from seawater per year. Next year, they plan to open a larger pilot plant with an annual capture capacity of 250 tons. The startup wants to remove one million tons of CO2 annually by 2030.
That mission does not come out of the blue. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and others, to combat global warming, we need to stop emitting CO2 and remove excess CO2 from the atmosphere. To illustrate, the latest IPCC report outlines that limiting warming to 1.5°C translates into about 6 Gt of CO2 in Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) per year by 2050 (1 Gt = 1,000,000,000 tons).
SeaO₂ uses Direct Ocean Capture (DOC), the little sister of Direct Air Capture (DAC). DAC has been in the running for about 15 years now; Dutch companies such as Carbyon and Skytree are in the process of scaling up. There are already larger installations in Iceland and the U.S. - the largest of which currently removes 36,000 tons of CO2 from the air annually. Really, even that's not much.To get an idea, a return flight from Amsterdam to Barcelona for two people costs 1 ton of CO2, and in the Netherlands last year, we emitted 122 million tons of CO2.
So there is work to be done. They are doing that at SeaO₂, a spin-off of TU Delft. Last month, the startup raised €2 million. I interviewed CEO Ruben Brands.
DOC technology has only just come into existence. Why do you remove CO2 from the ocean instead of the air?
“There is 150 times more CO₂ in a liter of seawater than in a liter of air. Because the concentration of CO₂ is higher in water, we are more energy efficient. Another plus is that we combat the acidification of seawater locally. This acidification is largely caused by climate change. This happens when there is too much CO₂ in the ocean. It is necessary to address this problem because acidification is bad for biodiversity. Coral reefs, for example, are affected.”
How exactly does your technology work?
“We use an electrochemical process. Inside a hard plastic case are bipolar membranes. We run a current through these membranes. This current comes into contact with one percent of the water we collect. In doing so, we create an acidic and alkaline side. When we add the acidic side to the rest of the water, the 99% that does not pass through our stack, the CO₂ bubbles up, so to speak, similar to the effect if you were to add vinegar to cola. We can then remove this CO₂. We then add the alkaline side to the water to restore the pH. Finally, we return the carbonized water to the ocean. We thereby indirectly remove CO₂ from the atmosphere because the ocean and the atmosphere are always in balance.”
How did you end up at SeaO₂?
“Before this, I was a corporate innovation consultant and started several small businesses. I am a father of young children, and a few years ago, I started asking myself more and more strongly: What is my contribution to the issue of climate change? Then, I started reading a lot of research and sent a message to the scientists at the cradle of DOC technology - postdoc Rose Sharifian and professor David Vermaas - on LinkedIn. Together with them, I then founded SeaO₂. Rose had just completed her PhD at TU Delft at the time - she is now our CTO.
Entrepreneurship, especially in the early stages, can be pretty tough. It feels like we have passed that stage. There is something in place now. The market believes what we are doing, and so do our partners.”
Investment of the month: ANTENNEX is world's only one that can measure advanced antennas so fast, so accurately
Each month we interview a startup or company that received an investment in recent times. This month: ANTENNEX.
What will you use the money for?
“We are busy scaling up our team. We now have sixteen people - including an oceanographer - on the payroll, up from eight at the beginning of this year. With the investment, we can now place orders to build larger systems. In addition, it is also very exciting for us to hook up with companies already pumping large quantities of seawater.”
What does your revenue model look like?
“That consists of several components. For example, we sell large companies carbon credits to offset emissions. Among others, Klarna is a customer of ours. We also sell CO₂ we've removed from the ocean to companies that need it: think synthetic fuel producers to make industries like aviation and shipping net neutral. They can reuse our green CO₂ instead of generating it with fossil fuels. We also (eventually) sell our technology through a license. This will allow companies to remove and reuse CO₂ from the ocean.”
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