280 Earth
Removing large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere, permanently and affordably
280 Earth is a direct air capture technology company that is removing carbon dioxide permanently from our atmosphere to improve the climate for generations to come. While incubating at The Moonshot Factory, the team developed a novel, low-cost way to pull CO2 out of the air and produce clean water. Today, 280 Earth operates a direct air capture plant in The Dalles, Oregon, with plans to scale operations across the United States and beyond.
Material Scientist, Chaokun Gong in the lab
Limiting Emissions is Not Enough
Since humanity industrialized, we’ve put more CO2 into the atmosphere than nature can remove, going from 280 parts per million (ppm) to 425 ppm and rising. In order to prevent the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, experts agree that we not only need to urgently and dramatically reduce fossil fuel emissions, but we also need to remove 190 gigatons of existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That’s the equivalent of two years’ worth of water passing through Niagara Falls.
Direct air capture technology is still a nascent field, with current plants removing around 0.01 megatons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per year. To make a real impact, this technology must scale rapidly – capturing 85 megatons annually by 2030 and more than 10 times than by 2050.
A “Sponge” to Soak Up Carbon
In 2018, a small team of engineers, chemists and material scientists set out to develop a more affordable and efficient way to scale up direct air capture technology and remove vast amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere. They realized that if they could design a system that operated at lower temperatures, they could power most of it for free —using waste heat from industrial facilities like data centers.
The team also discovered how to reduce the overall system cost and complexity through the invention of a CO2-sucking sorbent that acts like a sponge mopping up a water spill. The sorbent soaks up carbon dioxide from the air, and then can be “wrung out” and reused. The novel sorbent is made from amorphous silica pellets, an inexpensive and non-toxic drying agent coated in a chemical to adhere to CO2 . The team first built a small prototype in the Moonshot Factory labs, and then experimented with 70 different approaches and 700 different chemical combinations to fine-tune the sorbent.
The System
Using large fans, air is pulled into the DAC system.
CO2 inthe air attaches to our sorbent, a solid compound that has been designed for the process.
The sorbent is moved into a separate vacuum chamber and heated, separating the CO2 from the sorbent.
CO2 is removed, and may be permanently stored underground.
How 280 Earth Works
In the final design, air enters the system through fans. Carbon dioxide then adheres to the sorbent, which blows around the chamber similar to snowflakes in a snow globe. The carbon-saturated sorbent travels to a desorption chamber, where it is “wrung out” using vacuum suction and heat. Notably, more than 80 percent of this heat can be sourced from industrial waste.
After capturing the carbon, the system releases clean air back into the atmosphere. The collected carbon is compressed and stored, while the “emptied” sorbent cycles back into the system to be used again and again. The process also generates approximately two tons of clean water for every ton of carbon dioxide captured – water that can then be redirected to industrial heat sources, like data centers, for cooling.
AI-powered software optimizes the system by adjusting airflows, sorbent speeds, and temperatures. As it continually “learns,” the system improves efficiency, adapting to fluctuations in air temperature and moisture to maximize CO2 removal.
280 Earth’s system is the first direct air capture technology powered by the excess heat generated from industrial facilities. It operates at a target cost of one-third that of existing methods. At scale, the team believes it has the potential to remove 12 gigatons (12,000 megatons) of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.
280 Earth's first direct air capture plant in The Dalles, Oregon.
280 Earth Today
In 2024, 280 Earth graduated from X to become an independent company. Today, the team continues to develop and test its technology, and has opened its first direct air capture plant in The Dalles, Oregon. This prototype facility can collect 500 tons of CO2 per year. The team plans to scale up operations by building direct air capture facilities next to large industrial operations across the United States, and eventually, around the world.
