Berlin-based climate technology scale-up Ucaneo recently commissioned a electrochemical direct air capture (DAC) demonstration plant in Germany with a capacity to capture 150 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, the largest DAC facility at that time in Germany according to its CEO.
The facility is believed to be Germany’s first DAC facility integrated with carbon storage, with plans to geologically sequester captured CO2 to create carbon removal credits for companies or use it as a feedstock for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), methanol production, and food and beverage products.
The demonstration plant marks the next step towards Ucaneo’s first commercial-scale deployment, with CEO Florian Tiller outlining the company’s expansion plans.
Speaking to gasworld, Tiller shares Ucaneo’s next steps following the commissioning of its Berlin-Marzahn demonstration plant, the importance of its CO2 storage and utilisation plans, as well as the roadmap for DAC plant expansion on a nationwide and international scale.
Scaling DAC
On 2 July, Ucaneo commissioned its electrochemical DAC demonstration plant at its Berlin-Marzahn site, with a capacity to capture 150 tonnes of CO2 annually. According to Tiller, the facility will help optimise DAC plant design ahead of commercial deployment.
The Berlin-Marzahn site was installed and assembled in three to four months using Ucaneo’s pre-designed core modules in close collaboration with its supplier base.
© Carl Bahra
The goal is to develop prefabricated repeatable process unit (RPU) skids which can be duplicated to 100,000 tonnes per year scales.
On a commercial scale, each RPU can capture between 1,000 and 2,000 tonnes of CO2 annually, with skids stacked to increase capacity.
The first full-scale commercial plant, with roughly double the footprint of the demonstration plant, starts construction in 2027 at a site in northeastern Germany. With a capacity of around 1,100–1,500 tonnes of CO2 per year, it is believed to be one of the largest electrochemical DAC facilities globally.
Through future deployments, Ucaneo aims to reach half a gigatonne of annual CO2 capture capacity by 2035.
The facility will validate the company’s modular deployment approach before larger projects are developed.
“The major technical milestone for next year is finalising these RPU skids. We work very closely with big technology partners, for example, Siemens and others, to make this jump,” Tiller explains.
Notably, German technology business Siemens will deploy its automation services at Ucaneo’s Berlin-Marzahn demonstration project to standardise its DAC processes.
Capital expenditure on the commercial plant is projected to be around only 2 times the amount required for the construction of the demonstration plant but with ~10 times the capacity.
The scale-up of the first commercial plant is expected to take between three and six months as the skid technology matures.
A third DAC facility targeted for 2029–2030 would exceed 10,000 tonnes of annual capture capacity, forming part of a longer-term roadmap towards 100,000-tonne, 500,000-tonne, and million-tonne-scale deployments.
“Wherever we want to build this 10,000-tonne plus plant, we want to have an exact pathway to scale it significantly larger at the same premise,” Tiller says.
For the third plant, Ucaneo is assessing potential domestic and international sites, with the company open to Europe, the Middle East, or the US.
Profitable domestic deployment of the third site remains contingent on two factors falling into place: energy price and storage.
The first challenge of energy pricing can be resolved if the company integrates its own renewable assets or existing renewables, such as in Germany, to help balance the grid.
The second challenge is storage, Tiller notes, “There is a good policy framework around the CO2 storage law in Germany right now, but every state in Germany still has the right to opt in on storage. Unfortunately, so far there is no geological storage site suitable for larger scale-deployments in Germany at [this] point in time.”
Moving forward, expansion remains tied to funding, Tiller explains, “The most important focus right now is actually on achieving bankability to finance projects, in detail matching offtakes, technology cost and overall project profitability.”
For larger future plants, potentially in the price range of €50m ($57.6m) to €100m ($115m), the final challenge is building an efficient capital stack to keep capital costs low.
CO2 markets
Across Germany’s CO2 market, CO2 is often produced as a by-product of other industrial processes, such as ethanol or ammonia production, which leaves the CO2 market vulnerable to supply shortages and market shocks.
Ucaneo plans to position DAC as critical infrastructure for Germany’s and Europe’s CO2 market, supporting both permanent storage and industrial utilisation.
“We’re not just selling carbon credits or CO2, but we are actually selling critical infrastructure guaranteeing price stable resilient CO2 supply and sustainability,” Tiller explains.
With the European Commission’s plans to integrate permanent carbon removals into the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), there is potential for a guaranteed market for CO2 sequestration and storage to be put in place across Germany and Europe.
Ucaneo aims to design its commercial offtakes in a flexible manner for example an airline could decide to receive a guaranteed supply of CO2 gas to produce synthetic fuels, or the carbon credit itself. Instead of just CO2 or credits Ucaneo aims to provide a risk hedging infrastructure for their clients.
The company also plans to license its DAC technology for commercial deployments, with plans to become a technology provider rather than acting solely as a project development firm.
Engineering DAC
Ucaneo’s electrochemical DAC process removes CO2 from ambient air at a purity of over 99.9%. The process captures CO2, using a biomimetic solvent, from ambient air to form bicarbonate. A high-purity stream of CO2 is then released using bipolar membrane electrodialysis.
The company’s DAC technology consists of three core modules: the aeration module, the electrochemical module, and the degassing module.
The aeration module is inspired by cooling towers, the electrochemical cells and processes by water desalination and fuels cells, allowing Ucaneo to potentially adapt existing manufacturing capabilities and supply chains.
Founders of Ucaneo, Florian Tiller and Carla Glassl © Carl Bahra
“Nevertheless, the suppliers don’t fully understand why we design it or how it is designed. There are millions of options to combine different cell stack designs, membranes, solvents as well as process design and parameters selection,” Tiller adds.
“Ucaneo has unique IP and patents on some of the design of the core components such as the solvent or stack design, and of the combinations like different solvents combined with different membranes.”
Its electrochemical DAC technology focuses on three key strengths: low net installation costs, energy efficiency combined with flexible energy load, and the highest CO2 purity.
To reduce installation costs, Ucaneo uses standardised components to streamline manufacturing.
“So, even the plant we built in Berlin, or the pilots we built before, the net installation cost is so low that a lot of our industrial partners , are always very surprised with how little money we can actually build such facilities.” Tiller says.
Ucaneo says it demonstrated what it describes as one of the best energy efficiencies in DAC in 2025 with its industrial pilot.
However, according to Tiller, energy efficiency is just one part of the equation. “The key is actually to have a technology which can be integrated in the respective local energy source,” he says.
Because Ucaneo’s technology is both electrical and liquid-based, it can be integrated with renewable energy sources. At the same time Ucaneo can optimise the system design for countries with high- or low-cost energy, using more membrane area to reduce energy demand but increase CAPEX, and vice versa.
“This flexibility to optimize the system is unique and key,” Tiller adds.
To achieve the third aspect of CO2 purity, Tiller says, “As we have a liquid process, where we first dissolve the CO2 as a bicarbonate and liquid and then bubble it out through a membrane contactor we achieve very high purities just by the natural design of the process.”
Looking ahead, Tiller believes, “All the remaining risk has been solved before. It’s just optimising, scaling and showing the technology works robustly over the longer term.”
Ucaneo’s long-term ambition is to position DAC as a new source of industrial CO2 supply infrastructure, supporting both carbon removal markets and commercial CO2 applications.
“On one hand, we have too much CO2 in the atmosphere, on the other hand there are industries with CO2 shortages and risks. We build the industrial infrastructure to cover both challenges at the same time. CO2 is not evil or the problem, but the system we designed around it,” Tiller concludes.
