UoN engineering graduates have made a machine that takes carbon out of the air.

UoN engineering graduates have made a machine that takes carbon out of the air.

Kenya is committed to a green future, which makes the work of homegrown creators even more important for making the environment more sustainable and lowering the country’s net emissions.

The climate innovation startup that Mike Bwondera, Duncan Kariuki, and another person started focuses on designing and building a machine that takes carbon dioxide (CO2) straight from the air.
The machine directly takes in air that is blown through it and separates carbon dioxide from other gases by its chemical makeup. It then lets go of the other gases that aren’t needed and filters out the concentrated carbon to be kept in other solid forms.

The machine uses a screen material that is very simple. The CO₂ in the air is acidic, which leads to a process that turns saturated CO₂ into a salt. A lot of air is put through the machine, which lets the other gases escape while CO2 reacts to make a salt.

When CO2 mixes with filter material, salt is made. This salt can be turned into stone, buried, or used in industry.

In mining, CO2 is put into oil fields to help get more oil out of the ground. This is done by making the oil less thick, which makes it easier to pump.

Compressed CO₂ can also be cooled and pressed to make dry ice, which is used to cool things, move things that go bad quickly, and make special effects.
In the fight against carbon, their machine is better than growing trees in a number of ways. In order to reliably remove big amounts of carbon, trees need a very large area to do so.

The machine takes up less room than other machines similar to it but does a lot more. Trees need at least five to ten years to fully grow, but the machine works right away, which makes it easier for environmental companies that want to get into the carbon market to plan their moves.

Another thing is that even though trees take in carbon, it’s hard to say exactly how much carbon they remove. We can only guess based on things like transpiration rates.

The machine can be expanded, though, and the person running it can tell you exactly how much CO2 has been sucked out in a given session. This makes it easier to get carbon credit scores without having to involve a lot of regulators and evaluators.

The three of them started their business in 2022, when the country was still getting better after the pandemic. The business plans to stay open by selling its tools and carbon credits. New Direct Air Capture machines are being developed by the company.

These machines can remove up to 10 tons of CO2 per year, which is about the same amount of CO2 that 1000 trees take in in a year.
When the two founders were engineering students at the University of Nairobi, their interest in climate change study and new ideas led them to try to come up with a design for a machine that could directly collect from the air.

The new technology is expected to help Kenya reach its goal of becoming Africa’s first carbon-neutral country. Duncan Kariuki has told people to keep planting trees even though the new technology is about to hit the market, because Kenya needs all the help it can get to lower CO2 levels in the air, which are seriously hurting the country.

Mike Bwondera, who is now in charge of Research and Innovation at the company, said again that Kenyan universities are a great place to find talented people. The company has already hired six engineers straight from school.

Six engineers work for the company today to run its business. In the Global North, where college engineers cost ten times more than in Kenya, the cost of making things is much higher. The fact that the company can get both green energy and skilled engineers for a lot less money gives it a big edge in its plan to grow.

The best way for investors to make money from carbon credits is to use direct air capture equipment. On the carbon markets today, a carbon credit is equal to 1 ton of carbon taken out of the air.

UoN engineering graduates have made a machine that takes carbon out of the air.