CAPTURA DIRECT OCEAN CAPTURE PLATFORM | Illustrator | Engineering Concept Art
Of 1,133 teams worldwide that submitted their ideas to the XPrize Carbon Removal competition, Caltech-based start-up Captura became one of 15 finalists which collected a $1 million award from XPrize and the Musk Foundation.
The image features a concept for a giant processing plant that separates carbon from seawater. Ocean water is drawn upon onto the platform, carbon dioxide is either separated and stored in onboard tanks or funneled undersea and sequestered within the ocean’s bedrock. The structure’s power needs are supplied by the vast onboard solar array.
Since 2022, Captura has developed a pilot plant in Kona, Hawaii and is planning to integrate its carbon removal systems into retired oil and gas rigs. The megaton-scale Captura platform illustrated above is still a vision, but each success for the organization is one more step towards making this vision a reality.
