A technology which turns carbon dioxide into limestone has set up base in Norfolk.
Mission Zero Technologies (MZT) has opened a Direct Air Capture (DAC) plant in the region, to recover CO2 from the atmosphere for use in carbon-negative construction materials.
The plant – hailed as a world first – is projected to remove 250 tonnes of CO2 per year.
It is MZT’s second operational DAC plant since being founded in 2020; the first is a plant producing sustainable aviation fuel in Sheffield; and the third is currently being deployed for Deep Sky Labs in Canada.
The plant is a partnership with O.C.O Technology (O.C.O) and the UK Department of Energy Security and Net Zero.
The DAC solution will give O.C.O an on-site source of reliable, sustainable carbon to complement existing arrangements, helping to protect against fluctuations in CO2 prices and availability, and boosting demand for carbon-negative building materials.
This ‘carbon sink’ approach positions MZT as one of the most diversified developers delivering DAC solutions for carbon removal and carbon utilisation.
Government support via Net Zero funding has been critical. As one of the first DAC startups in the UK to receive such funding — and one of the first of the government’s greenhouse gas removal competition cohorts to deliver — this deployment marks a huge return for the government’s early investment in transformative climate technologies.
MZT recognises that carbon is an essential part of the modern economy, as is our need to move away from burning fossil fuels to obtain them. By using established global supply chains and mature ‘off-the-shelf’ components, the startup can rapidly deploy its tech.
This approach helps prove commercial and sustainable viability in by creating climate-friendly carbon products and removing CO₂ durably.
Dr Nicholas Chadwick, co-founder and CEO of MZT, said: “Thanks to months of hard work alongside our partners in O.C.O and the UK Government, we’re opening our second UK plant.
“While many Direct Air Capture solutions are still in the lab, our technologies are being used in real-world commercial settings — giving us invaluable insights and data to scale faster and helping to prove critics wrong.
“With the construction sector being one of the largest contributors to global carbon emissions, the industry needs to rapidly rethink its carbon backbone — and creating sustainable building materials which double as carbon sinks is a great way to do just that.”
Graham Cooper, UK Managing Director for O.C.O, said: “We’re pleased to work alongside Mission Zero in enabling this exciting technology.
“Direct air capture is an important part of UK and global efforts to reach Net Zero and beyond so working on this project fits with our core values of delivering carbon capture and sustainability.”
Breaking with first-generation DAC’s intense heat requirements, MZT’s heat-free technology achieves high thermodynamic efficiency — using 3 to 5 times less energy than other DAC approaches.
Using electricity rather than heat also means it can integrate with local renewable energy sources, as well as helping to absorb excess energy from solar and wind generation which would otherwise go to waste.
O.C.O supplies sustainable aggregates to several construction sectors with its Manufactured Limestone or M-LS, which stores CO2 in a stable form for thousands of years. Every 1,000 tonnes of M-LS produced captures the same amount as 3,000 trees in a year.
