How Israeli startups 'turn air into money'?

 The Israel-based High Hopes Laboratory has recently developed a method to not only capture the CO2 components of greenhouse gases, but also reuse them.

"CO2 freezes at about minus 80 degrees Celsius and we can see that at a distance of 15 kilometers from Earth," explains High Hopes Laboratory CEO Nadav Mansdorf.

The specific solution is that the laboratory has built a hot air balloon made of special materials that carries a block of equipment and can reach the aforementioned height. As the wind blows over the unit, the frozen CO2 is separated and retained.

As the wind blows over the unit, the frozen CO2 is separated and retained.

After about 2 hours the balloon returns to the ground, the solid CO2 transforms into a gas and can be sold to industries from plastics to carbonated drinks or buried deep in the ground where there is high pressure to finally turned into limestone.

Mr. Mansdorf added that the prototype device that could capture the largest amount of CO2 in the test was only a few kilograms, but in next year's tests, it is expected that the amount of CO2 captured will be between 50, 300 kg and 1 ton. per day and per balloon.

Compare that to how Iceland-based Climeworks uses a fan that sucks in the air, separates the CO2, mixes it with water and pumps it into the ground - which can capture 1,000 tonnes of CO2 per year at a cost of about $1,000 per ton, Mr. Mandsdorf said. Economics in the solution of High Hopes:

"We're targeting a cost of $100 to $250 per ton, and the next milestone is to reduce costs from less than $40 to $50."

Climeworks company in Iceland.

Mr. Mandsdorf this is just the cost of CO2 capture and the ultimate aim is to recycle the carbon by selling it to industry.

It is known that High Hopes themselves initially thought their idea was so unique that no one dared to invest, but after conducting experiments and realizing that the idea would work, investments began to pour in. .

According to Mansdorf, the lab raised $1 million within three weeks, the second round brought in $3 million, and High Hopes is in its third-biggest funding round and expects the amount to be "huge."

Experiment to recover CO2 from the air of Israeli scientists