How two Minerva University alumni are capturing CO2 emissions from ships

Ocean shipping quite literally drives the global economy. 50,000 vessels carry 90% of the world’s cargo.

But the sector is a major driver of global warming and environmental and human health risks.

Shipping emissions are headed in the wrong direction. At current growth rates, it could represent up to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Decarbonising ocean shipping will be a mammoth undertaking. 

Future fuels have yet to prove scale, efficiency solutions are insufficient, and slow steaming just pushes off the inevitable, leaving shipowners with limited viable options.

Could a retrofittable system be a pathway to decarbonise the commercial shipping industry?

Seabound thinks so.

The UK-based startup is building carbon capture equipment for large cargo ships as their retrofittable device traps CO₂ emissions from a ship’s exhaust gas. 

Co-Founders Alisha Fredriksson and Roujia Wen both studied at Minerva University, ranked the world’s most innovative university. 

Roujia went on to build machine learning products at Amazon’s Alexa AI and Alisha helped build leading maritime electro-fuel startup, Liquid Wind.

Now they’ve teamed up to decarbonise shipping with their patent-pending technology.

Here’s how it works

Seabound’s carbon capture technology diverts a ship’s exhaust gas into a container full of small pebbles of calcium oxide, which chemically react with CO2 in the exhaust gas to form calcium carbonate.

In other words, it makes limestone onboard ships, effectively locking the CO2 into small pebbles.

When the ship returns to port, Seabound offloads the limestone and either: 1) sells it for use as a building material, or 2) recycles the pebbles to separate the CO2 from the calcium oxide so to reuse the calcium oxide to capture more CO2 on another ship, and then sells the pure CO2 for clean fuel production or geological sequestration.

Their process is unique because they only capture the CO2 onboard and leave it locked in limestone, rather than trying to separate and liquefy the pure CO2 from the limestone onboard as well.

These steps of separation and liquefaction are typically the most complicated, expensive, and energy-intensive for carbon capture technologies, which is why Seabound has shifted them to shore where it can leverage economies of scale and land-based energy infrastructure.

Seabound’s technology is already making waves when earlier this year it demonstrated its carbon capture technology at sea for the first time with a carbon capture efficiency of 78% during the two month pilot.

Modular Carbon Capture

By modularizing their system, it is easier for the startup to manufacture and deploy across vessel types and minimizes the need for custom fabrication and complex retrofits for each ship.

Alisha tells us “at Seabound, we’re developing a unique modular carbon capture system that fits into modified 20ft shipping containers. These ‘Seabound Containers’ can be easily installed onto many different types of vessels, stacked and activated in sequence depending on how much CO2 a shipowner wants to capture on a given vessel, and also swapped from one vessel to another.”

Balancing VC Returns with Progress

“One of the challenges to scaling our technology is the misalignment between technology adoption curves in the shipping industry and VC return timelines,” Alisha explains.

Decarbonizing shipping is a monumental opportunity for impact and economic returns, however this transition will take time and shipowners are accustomed to operating under much longer timelines than traditional VCs (especially those predominantly experienced with software investing).

Alisha highlights 4 approaches they are using to navigate this:

• Working closely with leading shipping companies who are committed to accelerating shipping’s green transition (such as Lomar Shipping and lomarlabs)

• Lowering the barrier to entry for shipowners to reduce emissions ASAP by starting with just a few Seabound Containers and scaling up over time

• Engaging with regulators to advocate for more ambitious mandates, pursuing various sources of capital including from VC’s, strategics, and non-dilutive sources

• Branching out to sell not just to shipowners but also to their customers such as corporates that aim to reduce their scope 3 emissions.

The Outlook for Decarbonizing Shipping

Alternative fuels are still unfortunately 10-20 years away from being in sufficient, reliable supply and unlikely to benefit the existing ships on the water that have lifespans of 25-30 years. Additionally, efficiency solutions are insufficient for reducing a high volume of CO2 emissions.

At the same time, new regulations from the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the European Union require shipowners to reduce emissions each year and customer pressure from climate-conscious cargo owners such as IKEA and Amazon is increasing as well.

We therefore need urgent, retrofittable solutions to reduce emissions from shipping today.

So how is Seabound primed to make waves in shipping decarbonisation?

Alisha tells us “Our simple approach to onboard carbon capture offers an accessible, scalable, and cost-effective way for shipowners to meet regulatory and customer pressure and to reduce shipping’s contribution to global emissions.

Our ambition is to lead the industry’s green transition by capturing CO2 onboard thousands of ships in the years to come. We aim to demonstrate that this industry no longer needs to be hard-to-abate but can instead serve as an inspirational and pioneering example of a rapid and comprehensive response to tackling the climate crisis.”

The tides are turning.

Join Alisha in New York

Next up Alisha will be joining us on stage at the upcoming HackSummit in New York on 12-13th December. Get a front row seat to hear how their carbon capture technology is revolutionizing the future of shipping and mix with 600 leading Climate Deep Tech insiders over the two days.

For the premier US edition, the HackSummit will focus on an intimate and highly curated event - with just 600 attendees and ensure an ideal breakdown across sector, stage, focus and seniority. Ready to join us? Head this way to lock in your ticket.

P.S. Use code CARBON20 to save 20% off your pass.