AQUPONI brings Direct Carbon DAC to greenhouses in Japan

AQUPONI INC., a Japanese company specialising in circular agriculture, has started selling a new device that captures carbon dioxide directly from the air to boost crop yields in greenhouses, offering a sustainable alternative to fossil fuel-based methods. The company secured an exclusive agreement to distribute the “Wunderpumpe2” Direct Air Capture (DAC) unit, developed by Swedish technology firm Direct Carbon.

In controlled environment agriculture, enriching the air with CO2 is a common practice to stimulate plant growth. Research indicates that raising CO2 concentrations inside a greenhouse to between 1,000 and 1,200 parts per million can increase the yield of crops like tomatoes and leafy greens by up to 40%. However, conventional methods rely on burning fossil fuels or purchasing liquid CO2, which involve significant running costs and environmental concerns.

The Wunderpumpe2 addresses these challenges by extracting CO2 directly from the atmosphere. The unit then supplies a concentrated stream of CO2 into a greenhouse or plant factory. It features an energy-saving design with heat exchange and CO2 recirculation functions, automatically maintaining preset concentration levels without depending on fossil fuels.

A cost comparison for a 1,500-square-metre facility requiring 20 kilograms of CO2 per day shows that while the DAC unit has a higher initial investment, its low operational costs allow it to become more economical than traditional methods within one year. Over five years, it is estimated that it can total cost savings to approximately 14 million yen.

The device’s efficiency stems from a honeycomb-structured rotor and a proprietary fixed absorbent material, which provide a large effective surface area of 100 square metres for CO2 capture. Its compact, modular design, weighing 31 kilograms with a volume of about one-eighth of a cubic metre, allows for easy installation in various settings, including research labs and container farms.

Following the launch of the Wunderpumpe2, which produces about two kilograms of CO2 per day, larger models in the series are planned for release to serve bigger agricultural operations. AQUPONI intends to conduct its own demonstration experiments using the technology for strawberry cultivation to develop optimised models for aquaponics and greenhouse horticulture.

AQUPONI sees potential for the technology to support Japan’s transition to a carbon-neutral society. Potential applications include supplying food-grade CO2 for the beverage industry, helping data centres offset their emissions, and enabling carbon credit generation.