Serial entrepreneur Charles Cadieu and Los Alamos National Lab scientist Matt Lee have collaborated to advance and expand a material that is similar to a human lung in its ability to take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The company, known as Spiritus, which translates to breath, began operations in December 2021 and on Wednesday is coming out of the shadows with a news of an $11 million capital raise led by distinguished Silicon Valley venture capital firm Khosla Ventures. The method of getting the accumulated carbon dioxide out of the material requires relatively low temperature, thereby making the procedure energy-efficient and affordable - a significant marketing point for Khosla Ventures.
Serial entrepreneur and chemical engineer Charles Cadieu and Matt Lee, who had a decade of experience at a prominent national lab, teamed up to build and scale a new direct air capture technology that copies the structure of a human lung. Their company, Spiritus, which is named after the Latin word for "breath," began operations in December 2021 and will be publicly launching on Wednesday following an $11 million funding round headed by Silicon Valley venture capital firm Khosla Ventures and other investors, including Page One Ventures.At the core of their invention is a material that absorbs carbon dioxide passively and a design that simulates alveoli in the lungs to enlarge the contact space with the sorbent. These "lung-like fruits" are shaped like round balls and organized like virtual fruit in a carbon capture orchard. After harvesting them, they are put in a container with low heat, which is powered by green energy, to discharge the CO2. Once this is done, the sorbent is put back in the orchard for reuse.
From September 2012 to June 2022, Lee worked at Los Alamos National Lab on various chemical engineering projects, which included some with national security and defense applications, heat shields, and laser fusion fuel target pellets like those utilized by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to attain a significant accomplishment in nuclear fusion. As a professional in colloid science--the scientific study of substances with small particles suspended in another--Lee hadn't handled carbon capture technology applications until Cadieu inspired him to tackle the problem. The two knew each other for around 15 years through a family friend, and enjoyed following the progress of each other's projects. Cadieu was also the co-founder of Caption Health, a healthcare startup that applies artificial intelligence to ultrasounds. In September 2020, it received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for its ability to bring non-experts to perform scans of the lungs. In February 2023, Caption Health was purchased by GE Healthcare. He was also a founding team member of IQ Engines, which Yahoo bought in 2013.When Cadieu proposed Lee to consider carbon capture, the latter tackled the challenge with his career-long philosophy: "Mother Nature is the real artist and she has far more practice than we have," Lee told CNBC. The other part of his point of view was summarized by a quotation from Leonardo da Vinci that Lee cited: "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."That's why they looked to the lungs.
Lee told CNBC that lungs are highly adept at taking a giant volume of air and distributing it among an immense number of interfaces between the alveoli and other parts of the body. This is important because it allows us to dilute the extremely high concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and cause it to make up a minimal portion of the air. Lee also pointed out that garnering a significant amount of CO2 through this process requires an enormous amount of air, as evidenced by Khosla Ventures making their first direct air capture investment in Spiritus. Rajesh Swaminathan, partner at Khosla Ventures, stated in a phone call that direct air capture technology is still in its early stages and has an expensive price tag, but Spiritus is unique in that it goes through the absorption of carbon dioxide with minimal energy. In addition, the desorption process of taking the carbon dioxide from the "fruit" created by the lung-like material needs comparatively little energy.
Cadieu told CNBC that many direct air capture processes need either high heat or a lot of energy, but Spiritus' process requires lower heat and just half the energy required by other solutions - helping to bring down cost. The U.S. Department of Energy's "Carbon Negative Shot" initiative is attempting to find solutions that capture, remove and store carbon dioxide for less than $100 per metric ton, which is a goal Spiritus is actively working towards. They plan to partner with companies that specialize in carbon sequestration to store the removed carbon. Additionally, artificial carbon orchards require a smaller land footprint than biologic forests as they absorb more carbon dioxide with less land while sequestering it permanently. Cadieu noted, "[Spiritus is] able to remove about 1,000 times more carbon dioxide than a forest can. And so this solution is actually far more efficient than forestry for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per acre."
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