In a laboratory in New Jersey, orbital produces its purple powder and glue to plastic leaves which are superimposed like lasagna to create an air filter capturing carbon.
In the carbon capture process, the air is drawn through fans and pulled through the Sorbant, which absorbs carbon in the air. When the material is heated, it releases the CO₂ in large tanks which are transported wherever carbon is stored.
Orbital packs the machines in shipping containers that can be sent to data centers, such as that of the United Kingdom.
The system is similar to other carbon capture processes, except that it uses the power of the data center, which constantly blows the fans and generates heat that can be reused to operate orbital carbon capture machines, lowering costs.
The idea of direct air capture in data centers has been launched for years. One of the reasons for which he has not taken off is that the air leaving the installations is heated, while traditional sorbents require cold air.
Instead of trying to find a way to cool the air before it interacts with the Sorbants, Orbital asked its owner AI model to find a molecule that would have better absorption at higher temperatures. Then the company had to test the equipment in its laboratory. Founded in 2022, purple powder is the first material it has sold.
Companies like Amazon have great pains to assert that their data centers do not contribute to climate change and have become major adopters of renewable energy technologies, helping to finance solar and wind farms to supply their facilities.
Amazon says it is the The biggest buyer renewable energy in the world, which it mainly does to compensate for carbon emissions produced by its data centers.
Google, another large cloud supplier, plans to pay $ 100 per ton to another different air capture business. (The price is partially subsidized by federal incentives.)
If companies can capture carbon using their data centers, they could save long -term money compared to the purchase of carbon credits.
Godwin said the biggest cloud suppliers had not yet deployed carbon capture projects in their data centers because they are more opposed to risk.
“There are starting problems with any new technology,” he said. For example, if something is wrong with the system, it could cause public relations headache for high -level businesses. Companies also fear that carbon capture technology has an impact on performance on the data center itself.
Orbital hopes to prove itself with its first pilot program at Civlo Data Center, which is about an hour from London by train.
The building, which houses a mixture of traditional calculations and high performance GPU to handle the largest AI models, will feed the hot air with orbital containers shipped from New Jersey.