One startup is turning industrial emissions into advanced carbon materials

Spotted: Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, manufacturing has transformed dramatically - largely prioritising efficiency and output over sustainability. This has resulted in huge amounts of waste and masses of carbon emissions being pumped into the atmosphere. Now, SkyNano wants to put that pollution to better use.

According to company CEO and co-founder Anna Douglas, SkyNano is about addressing our CO2 problem and "re-shaping how we think about materials manufacturing". To do this, the startup has developed a solution that captures CO2 from the point source of emissions and uses electrochemistry to convert it into multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) for high-performance materials that trap carbon for the long term.

The idea for SkyNano began when Douglas was at graduate school and wanted to find a way to make the production of lithium-ion batteries - a staple for most green tech - more sustainable. Starting with carbon, which plays a key part in today's battery chemistry, Douglas and her PhD advisor found a decades-old chemistry that could convert CO2 into solid carbon and oxygen, and then adapted this approach to produce highly valuable carbon structures. "As we tuned the selectivity of these highly valuable carbon structures, we realised this was more than a research project, but that the innovation could make a real impact in the marketplace," Douglas told Springwise. SkyNano was founded to scale and commercialise this idea.

Not only does SkyNano's system prevent emissions from being released into the atmosphere in the first place, but the final materials also offer improved performance and can be used in a range of consumer products - including faster-charging batteries and more fuel-efficient tyres - to reduce the energy these products consume during the use phase of their life cycles. According to Douglas, its technology also has promising commercial applications across the energy, composites, and coatings industries.

SkyNano has already focused on scaling the physical footprint of its technology, but now, the company is also working on improving the rate of CO2 conversion and carbon product output. Once SkyNano has achieved this, it will develop its commercially deployable module unit. Ultimately, SkyNano plans to co-locate with point sources of emissions to help its stakeholders decarbonise, while the company produces its valuable solid carbon structures.