As the federal government pushes for a Net Zero economy, capturing carbon dioxide and sequestering it has exploded in popularity.
A Calgary-based cleantech upstart is determined to put that captured CO2 to use.
The flagship technology being developed by Alberta’s Ethox Energy utilizes captured CO2 as a feedstock in order to create products for fuel production, such as synthetic gas that serves as a building block for methanol, diesel alternatives, and even aviation fuel.
In August, Ethox presented a technology showcase so that industry and engineering partners could observe the company’s progress toward pilot testing.
“This is really a milestone for Ethox Energy,” co-founder Maryam Omidvar recently informed Innovate Calgary. “We’ve scaled our technology to a point where we can de-risk the next stage and give industry confidence that it can be used in their systems.”
Omidvar, who holds a PhD in chemical engineering, spent the better part of a decade studying CO2 capture before her interest shifting beyond mere emissions.
“I spent seven or eight years working on capturing CO2,” she recalls, before asking questions: “Why should we just capture it? Why not utilize it?”
At one point, Ethox was simply an idea. Possessing little more than some unproven intellectual property, Omidvar joined Innovate Calgary’s Innovation Catalyst Grant, a two-year fellowship for science entrepreneurs pursuing commercialization.
The fellowship enabled Omidvar to focus full-time on Ethox.
“Without that money, without that support, we couldn’t get to this point,” Omidvar admits.
After completing the fellowship, and with use cases for its technology in the aviation sector, Ethox joined Innovate Calgary’s Aerospace Innovation Hub.
Moving forward, Omidvar says that Ethox is preparing an industrial pilot to battle-test its technology in real-world conditions—and, if successful, the company will move on toward commercial-scale projects.
Ethox Energy launched in 2023.