Mission Zero Technologies (MZT) opens its Direct Air Capture (DAC) plant in Norfolk, the world’s first fully integrated DAC-to-building materials production demonstration.
In partnership with O.C.O Technology (O.C.O) and the UK Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), MZT’s DAC solution is capable of recovering around 250 tonnes of CO2 per year from the atmosphere for direct use in O.C.O’s Manufactured Limestone.
Dr Nicholas Chadwick, Co-founder and CEO of MZT said: “Thanks to months of hard work alongside our partners in O.C.O and the UK Government, we’re opening our second UK plant. While many Direct Air Capture solutions are still in the lab, our technologies are being used in real-world commercial settings — giving us invaluable insights and data to scale faster and helping to prove critics wrong.
“With the construction sector being one of the largest contributors to global carbon emissions, the industry needs to rapidly rethink its carbon backbone — and creating sustainable building materials which double as carbon sinks is a great way to do just that.”
Graham Cooper, UK Managing Director for O.C.O said: “We’re pleased to work alongside Mission Zero in enabling this exciting technology. Direct air capture is an important part of UK and global efforts to reach Net Zero and beyond and so working on this project fits with our core values of delivering carbon capture and sustainability.”
Breaking with first-generation DAC’s intense heat requirements, MZT’s heat-free technology achieves high thermodynamic efficiency — using three to five times less energy than other DAC approaches. Using electricity rather than heat also means it can integrate with local renewable energy sources, as well as helping to absorb excess energy from solar and wind generation which would otherwise go to waste.
O.C.O supplies sustainable aggregates into a number of construction sectors, through its Manufactured Limestone or M-LS, which stores CO2 in a stable form for thousands of years. Every 1,000 tonnes of M-LS produced captures the same amount as 3,000 trees in a year.
