TLDR:
Key Points:
- Mantel, a cleantech startup, raised $30 million in Series A funding to scale its industrial carbon capture solution.
- The company is developing molten salt-based carbon capture materials to help industrial companies reach net zero goals.
Cleantech startup Mantel recently announced that it has secured $30 million in Series A funding to expand its industrial carbon capture solution. Founded in 2022 by Cameron Halliday, Danielle Rapson, and Sean Robertson, the company is focused on developing molten salt-based carbon capture materials that aim to address emissions in hard-to-abate industries.
The technology developed by Mantel utilizes molten borate materials to capture CO2 at the source of emissions within industrial settings like boilers, kilns, and furnaces. The process not only captures CO2 but also recovers high-grade heat during absorption, offsetting the energy required to regenerate the molten borate material and thereby reducing capture costs significantly compared to conventional technologies.
Mantel has successfully demonstrated carbon capture at a lab-scale of half a tonne per day. The new funding will be utilized to implement a demonstration project at an industrial site, with the aim of advancing towards full-scale commercial deployment of its high-temperature carbon capture systems. The upcoming demonstration project is expected to be around 10 times larger than the lab-scale project and rated to capture 1,800 tonnes of CO2 per year.
The funding round was led by Shell Ventures and Eni Next, the venture capital arms of energy companies Shell and Eni. Other investors such as Engine Ventures, New Climate Ventures, and bp Ventures also participated in the round. Both Shell and Eni expressed confidence in Mantel’s technology’s ability to significantly lower carbon capture costs and its potential applications across various sectors, including natural gas power plants and hard-to-abate industries like cement, steel, and chemicals.
Mantel’s co-founder and CEO, Cameron Halliday, emphasized the importance of transitioning from lab success to working with customers for full-scale commercial projects. With the new funding and support from investors and industry leaders, Mantel aims to showcase the effectiveness of its technology and demonstrate its potential as a cost-effective pathway to achieving net zero emissions for industrial customers.
