A small start-up in French speaking Switzerland could end up have a large impact on the climate.
In a few days the firm, Qaptis, will complete a modest crowdfunding campaign which will allow it to bring out the first truck with a carbon capture device attached to the exhaust. It liquifies the carbon which can be drained away later.
The inventors claim it can reduce the carbon emitted into the atmosphere from a truck by 90%.
The work follows a patent filed by an EPFL professor, Francois Maréchal in 2018.
It won’t take a lot of money to bring out the first truck. The firm is asking for only CHF 25,000, but if the prototype is successful, there’s likely to be significantly more money available. I found this intriguing. Here is the company’s web-site https://www.qaptis.com/
They are within reach of their target, less than 2,000 in 5 days to go.
I gave CHF100 (using Twint).
Personally I have nothing to do with these guys, I heard about them this morning, I like what they are doing, and donated less than the cost of a dozen beers.
Thank you. That's interesting. I wondered what they would do with the carbon, and found this on their page: Hang on, I hear you say, carbon can’t be recycled. But you’d be wrong. Technology is changing things. Carbon can be recycled into a range of things – from building materials, synthetic fuel, to plastic bottles, even to clothes or proteins.
Last night we reached our first goal of CHF 25’000 - the campaign is already a success. However, we still have 4 days to try to reach our second goal of CHF 50’000. And we love challenges (otherwise we would not launch such a start-up project :-)). Every day counts to get there. If you want to support us, here are usome ideas:
publish a post on your social networks;
Do you know someone famous who could participate and communicate it? Now is the time to contact them.
talk to your company, they might be interested in sponsoring.
Thanks in advance and have a great weekend, The Qaptis team The first 25k is to build the prototype, the next 50k to install the prototype on an actual truck and begin testing.
Capturing the CO2 with the intent to recycle requires the undoing of those reactions and therefore an energy input that is larger than the energy originally produced.