Help vertical farming cut costs and be less pollutant The glo | Tech for Good

Help vertical farming cut costs and be less pollutant

The global vertical farming (VF) market reached USD 4.34 billion in 2021. It will expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25.5% from 2022 to 2030. The growth is due to the increased production of fruits and vegetables.

VF can increase crop yield, lower land and water use, and localize food supply chains. But the industry still has one particularly unsustainable dependency. CO2 is pumped into vertical farms to help plants grow. And, at present, it usually comes from fossil fuel production.

Skytree startup develops a new method. They install localized direct-air-capture units next to vertical farms. So they can capture their own CO2, recycling it from the atmosphere.

How does it work?

The tech uses plastic beads. They are a few millimeters wide and made of ion exchange resin. They’re exposed to the air and after 15-20 minutes they’ve collected CO2 like a sponge. Then they’re heated up to 70-80C and that releases the CO2 again.

Skytree’s units are small enough to be able to bring captured CO2 to where it’s needed as a product. Besides VF, applications include air and water filtration, and cement/fuel/plastic production.

Skytree's business model is also interesting. They provide their devices on CO2-as-a-service basis. They lock the CO2 price from the start, and clients pay for the amount of CO2 consumed monthly. Clients have no upfront installation costs.

The company's promise to their clients is to cut CO2 costs. It is also to make operations more efficient. Instead of buying, transporting and storing CO2 produced from fossil fuels, customers take CO2 out of the air onsite.

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