Lower Austrian company builds CO2 capture tower for Canada
Friday 30th October 2026 on 06:45 in
Austria
A company in Schwarzenau is finishing a machine designed to remove carbon dioxide directly from the air before it is sent to Canada for testing. The project could contribute to climate protection, ORF reports, but experts warn that direct air capture can be costly and energy-intensive.
The company, DACworx, was founded in 2023 by Lower Austrians Johannes Fuchs and Gerhard Schöny, who previously worked on carbon capture technologies at TU Vienna. The founders say they have spent 15 years developing their technology. Fuchs stressed that capturing CO2 must not replace efforts to prevent emissions. It could instead complement those efforts in sectors where emissions are difficult to avoid, including parts of industry, agriculture and aviation.
The machine draws large volumes of air through a tower containing a specialised granulate that binds CO2. Once saturated, the granulate is moved to another part of the machine, where heat and reduced pressure release the gas. The resulting concentrated CO2 stream can then be processed, and the granulate reused. DACworx says separating the capture and release stages is intended to reduce energy use. It says much of the required energy could come from low-temperature heat, such as industrial waste heat.
The tower being completed in Schwarzenau is about 10 metres tall and is the company’s largest model so far. It is designed to capture about 350 tonnes of CO2 a year, although that capacity has not yet been demonstrated with this model.
After testing in Schwarzenau, in the Waldviertel, the tower is to be dismantled and shipped to Alberta, Canada, for the Deep Sky Alpha project, where different direct air capture technologies are being tested under real-world conditions. The captured CO2 is to be liquefied and stored permanently underground. The company aims to sell carbon credits from the process.
Keywan Riahi, energy, climate and environment programme director at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, sees direct air capture as one of several ways to remove CO2. He said stopping global warming requires net CO2 emissions to fall to zero through both emissions reductions and CO2 removal.
The World Meteorological Organization reported this week that atmospheric CO2 concentrations reached a record high, rising again in 2025.