It seems like a typical delivery container. However a steel field at a London manufacturing facility is aimed toward fixing one of many delivery business’s greatest challenges: the right way to minimize CO2 emissions on cargo ships.
The tech, from a startup referred to as Seabound, can seize as a lot as 95% of the CO2 emissions from the exhaust on ship. The corporate is now making ready to put in a set of the containers on a cargo ship in its first industrial deployment after years of improvement and pilot exams.
“The delivery business is among the final hard-to-abate sectors,” says 30-year-old CEO Alisha Fredriksson, who cofounded the corporate in 2021 after working as a guide and seeing the necessity for a brand new answer within the area. Clear fuels like inexperienced methanol and inexperienced ammonia exist, however solely in restricted quantities. “We’re nonetheless in very scarce provide of those fuels, they usually’re projected to be 2-3x costlier than the standard fuels,” she says. “And the business faces competitors from different industries that may sometimes pay extra for them.”
Cargo ships additionally final for many years, and ships in use now can’t simply swap to new fuels. Because the business slowly transitions—and in some instances begins to make use of different low-emission know-how like wind power—the startup is engaged on the air pollution downside of the tens of 1000’s of ships which can be already on the ocean. Cargo ships emitted 973 million metric tons of CO2 in 2024, round 2.5% of worldwide emissions.
Turning ship air pollution into strong rock
Inside the corporate’s modular containers, there are tens of millions of marble-size pellets of calcium hydroxide, also called lime. The field sits close to the engine and connects to the ship’s exhaust. Because the exhaust flows by way of the lime, the CO2 reacts with the fabric to make limestone. Every pellet barely modifications colour, from white to off-white, because it captures carbon and soot from the exhaust. One container can seize roughly a day’s value of air pollution because the ship travels, and to cowl a full route, a number of modules are related collectively.
As soon as the ship reaches port, a typical crane offloads the containers of calcium carbonate, “successfully a elaborate field of rocks,” says Fredriksson. The limestone could be bought as a constructing materials. Or, the corporate can reverse the response—pulling the CO2 again out—in order that it may be sequestered or used to make fuels or chemical substances. In that state of affairs, the lime could be loaded again into the containers and despatched again onto a ship to seize extra CO2.
Seabound’s first buyer, Heidelberg Materials, will start utilizing the tech on a cement ship later this 12 months. Because the ship travels alongside the coast of Norway, the containers will seize CO2. Then the corporate will use the limestone in its kiln to make cement. (Heidelberg’s kilns additionally seize CO2, a few of which can be completely saved.)
The startup’s primary carbon seize course of, referred to as calcium looping, can be in use by some direct air seize firms like Heirloom, which makes use of trays of crushed rocks to pull CO2 from the atmosphere. However by hooking up on to an exhaust pipe, Seabound can seize CO2 extra effectively. Waste warmth from the ship’s engines additionally helps the method work quicker.
Not like costly carbon seize know-how at industrial services, the know-how is easy sufficient that it may be comparatively low-cost when it scales up, Fredriksson says. The corporate has calculated that it may also be one to 2 orders of magnitude cheaper than another know-how in improvement for carbon seize on ships.
The entire course of does create some emissions earlier than it’s in use, because the lime is made and transported. However Seabound plans to work with lower-carbon “inexperienced lime.” Initially, although the tech can seize 95% of the CO2 because it comes from the exhaust stack, the whole seize effectivity of the entire course of can be nearer to 80%. Over time, it’s possible for the method to chop emissions by 90%.
Cleansing up right this moment’s ships
The startup, which has raised round £8.5 million ($11.6 million) in mixed fairness and grant funding from delivery firms and local weather tech VCs, is working first with prospects in Europe, the place strict rules are pushing the business to rapidly minimize emissions. Within the European Union, delivery is now absolutely topic to the EU’s emissions buying and selling scheme, and a separate coverage is ramping up fines for the emissions from gasoline burned by ships. Transport firms are additionally going through stress from massive prospects, like Ikea, which have bold local weather targets.
Seabound plans to deal with shorter routes that keep inside Europe, establishing operations on the ports the place ships refuel. Later, it plans to develop to Asia. Although international coverage progess was delayed in 2025, after the Worldwide Maritime Group postponed a deliberate international carbon worth for delivery under pressure from the Trump administration, the IMO can be reconsidering the proposal later this 12 months.
There are round 60,000 cargo ships in use now globally. Including the tech to all of them would clearly be a heavy carry, although the business has made different modifications up to now, together with including sulfur scrubbers that seize different air pollution.
There’s an argument that the brand new know-how poses an ethical hazard—firms could be slower to undertake zero-emission tech if they will use CO seize as an alternative. However Fredriksson says that given the gradual tempo of other fuels and different options, carbon seize is critical.
“We began Seabound about 4 years in the past now,” she says. “I feel the long run fuels really feel simply as far into the long run as they did after I began the corporate.” If different fuels do grow to be broadly out there, she says, the carbon seize tech may nonetheless be used to seize that exhaust. “Then we may do carbon detrimental delivery,” she says.
