Air capture technology specialist Climeworks has been awarded the Innovation in Vacuum Busch Award by global manufacturer Busch Vacuum Solutions for its advanced use of vacuum technology in its processes.

Climeworks is the first company to use direct air capture technology to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.

In this way, the company is actively making an important contribution to reducing global warming.

In these unique plants, MINK claw vacuum technology from Busch is used to filter CO₂.

Busch presents the Innovation in Vacuum Busch Award once a year.

The award honours individuals or companies that make use of vacuum technology with particularly innovative ideas and thereby serve the wellbeing of people and the environment.

The Innovation in Vacuum Busch Award was first presented in 2013 on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Busch Vacuum Solutions.

Green Efforts

The rise in temperature caused by climate change can only be limited by restoring a healthy balance in the CO₂ content of the atmosphere.

This can only be realised if both current emissions are drastically reduced and unavoidable emissions that have already been emitted are removed from the air.

Using Climeworks' Direct Air Capture technology, CO₂ is filtered directly from the air.

The CO₂ collectors selectively capture CO2 in a two-step process.

First, air is drawn into the collector by a fan. The CO2 is captured on the surface of a highly selective filter material located inside the collectors.

After the filter material is filled with CO2, the collector is closed, and the temperature is raised to 80 °C to 100 °C – releasing and capturing the pure CO₂.

The filtered CO₂ is extracted using MINK claw vacuum pumps from Busch.

It is then mixed with water and injected underground into basalt rock by Climeworks' partner, academic-industrial partnership in Germany Carbfix.

Over a period of a few years, the CO₂ mineralises itself and is thus permanently and safely removed from the atmosphere and converted back into rock underground.

Climeworks' technology is powered exclusively by renewable energy or waste heat, and the modular collectors can be combined to create systems of various sizes.

Climeworks and Busch have had a close partnership from the beginning.

Climeworks founder and MD Jan Wurzbacher accepted the award, together with other representatives of the company, during a small ceremony at the headquarters of Busch Vacuum Solutions in Maulburg, Germany.