United Airlines announces $5 million investment in carbon capture company Svante

Chicago-based United Airlines has announced an $5 million investment in carbon capture technology company Svante, who provides materials and technology with the potential to convert CO2 removed from the atmosphere and from industrial emission sources into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

This is the latest announced investment from the new UAV Sustainable Flight Fund, said to be a first-of-its-kind investment vehicle that is designed to leverage support from cross-industry businesses in order to support start-ups focused on decarbonizing air travel through SAF research, technology and production.

The airline aims to be 100% green by reducing its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 100% by 2050, without relying on traditional carbon offsets. To date, United has invested in the future production of over three billion gallons of SAF — the most of any airline in the world, it says.

This investment will fund and support Svante’s commercial-scale filter manufacturing facility in Vancouver. Svante is working with organizations around the world, including Ithaca, NY-based Dimensional Energy, a carbon utilization — CO2 to jet fuel — company that UAV (United Airlines Ventures) invested in last year.

Svante is a second generation solid sorbent-based carbon capture and removal enterprise. The company’s scalable, eco-friendly, and commercially available carbon capture and removal technology employs structured absorbent beds, known as filters. These filters can capture 95% of CO2 emissions from industrial sites as well as CO2 that’s already in the air.

Once the CO2 is captured, it is concentrated and can be used in the creation of SAF or other products. It can also be safely transported and stored underground.

Svante’s manufacturing facility is anticipated to produce enough filter modules to capture millions of tons of carbon dioxide per year across hundreds of large-scale carbon capture facilities.

According to Jason Salfi, Dimensional Energy’s CEO, “the teams at Svante and Dimensional Energy are working together to design integrated systems for captured CO2 to SAF today.

“There is enough CO2 in the atmosphere and in industrial process emissions to provide all of the carbon necessary for the fuels and products people use every day now and into the future. Svante provides the first step toward a circular carbon economy.”

SAF is an alternative to conventional jet fuel that, on a lifecycle basis, reduces GHG emissions associated with air travel compared to conventional jet fuel alone. SAF is made from used cooking oil and agricultural waste, and, in the future, could be made from other feedstocks, including household trash, forest waste, or compressed CO2, the end product of Svante’s carbon capture process.