The Brno photobioreactor qualified for the competition for millions of dollars. The money was donated by Elon Musk – ČT24 – Czech Television
Competition of ideas for the future
XPRIZE founder Peter H. Diamandis and businessman Elon Musk announced the biggest incentive in history last year: they will distribute a total of $ 100 million for the development of large-scale CO2 removal technologies. “We want teams to create functional systems that can have a measurable impact in the order of gigatonnes of CO2. Whatever it costs. Time is running out, “says Musek’s statement on the competition’s website.
This year, they handed out the first $ 15 million as the so-called “Milestone Awards”. Simbios, who made it the only one of the best in the Czech Republic out of more than a thousand registered, also ran for money.
“The process of submitting proposals has been extremely difficult. All technologies were evaluated by an international panel of seventy experts from around the world. That is why I consider it a success that we got among 287 teams that had a chance to fight for the million bonus, even though we did not win it in the end, “says Věchet.
The first prototype of Simbios is already operating in BUT laboratories. It measures about a meter and a half and manages to catch about forty kilograms of pairs a year. The assumption is that the device will be able to scale – ie increase and thus significantly increase its performance. “Physics is on our side: if we increase the height just a little, the area of the tubes will increase many times over. About three to four meters could capture as much CO2how much a family of four exhales a year, ”describes Věchet.