BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA — June 17, 2024 — Capture6, a water-positive carbon removal company, and Veolia Water Technologies & Solutions, a global leader in solving the toughest water, wastewater and process challenges, recently announced a global collaboration agreement to help address both the cause and symptoms of climate change by deploying carbon dioxide (CO₂) removal facilities with integrated water management systems.
According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), keeping global warming under 1.5°C is no longer possible by reducing emissions alone. Permanent and irreversible carbon removal must be deployed at unprecedented speed and scale. At the same time, the world struggles with water security, which is exacerbated by climate change and threatens local economies, jobs and livelihoods. The Capture6 and Veolia collaboration will allow for novel reconfiguration of existing commercialized technologies to provide more cost-effective direct air capture CO₂ removal while using wastewater brine to produce valuable by-products and freshwater.
Capture6’s direct air capture (DAC) technology requires saltwater to create its carbon removal solvent. By partnering with water treatment facilities and repurposing existing industrial-scale technologies, Capture6 can recover freshwater from desalination waste brine for drinking and industrial purposes while capturing CO₂ and reducing waste brine in the process. This process uses cutting-edge desalination and water treatment technologies Veolia has been developing and implementing for over a century to effectively manage water resources around the world. These same technologies will enable Capture6 to scale quickly and meaningfully contribute to combating the climate crisis.
Brine treatment for carbon capture and water recovery is key to the Capture6 process, and Veolia has brine treatment experience on five continents. Veolia can provide advanced water treatment processes for various brine sources based on its expertise in filtration, membrane, thermal treatment and electrodialysis technologies.
Integrating DAC technology into advanced water treatment processes offers a promising path to carbon removal on a global scale.
“With Capture6, there will be zero discharge of brine,” said California’s Palmdale Water District Engineering Manager Scott Rogers. “This provides us with a lot of resilience. It looks like our savings will be about 20% to 40% for the lifetime of the cost of the project.”
Capture6 is leveraging this agreement in the development of a global pipeline of projects in California, Western Australia, New Zealand and South Korea to integrate circular solutions that use brine waste streams in their integrated process to provide megaton CO₂ removal from the atmosphere and create co-benefits including fresh water and added value products.
“Our solution was developed after closely looking at the major cost drivers of direct air carbon capture systems and working hard to eliminate them,” said Dr. Ethan Cohen-Cole, CEO and co-founder of Capture6. “Veolia has unique advantages integrating water treatment solutions that makes them the ideal partner.”
“As part of our drive for ecological transformation to address climate change challenges, Veolia is excited to work with Capture6 to help provide innovative, meaningful solutions that can reduce residual emissions in the atmosphere as well as help companies and countries meet their net zero targets.” said Bill Heins, global leader for new market development at Veolia Water Technologies & Solutions.
