2025 Carbon Removal Challenge Final Showcase Broadcast
This is it! After months of effort, many webinars, rounds of submissions and judging all came down to this:
THE 2025 CARBON REMOVAL CHALLENGE FINAL SHOWCASE
See our 5 finalist student teams presentation of their award winning projects at Carbon Unbound! Please join us in celebrating our finalists teams in this culminating event for the 2025 Carbon Removal Challenge. The broadcast will be recorded earlier in the day at Carbon Unbound, but aired that same evening for an international audience. The teams will be in the chat, LIVE to respond to your questions about their projects. Hosted by CRC co-chairs, Matt Parker and Sue Dorward, learn more about each team and their ground breaking approaches to carbon removal!
Here are our finalist teams:
EPFL Carbon Team
Team Members:
Alizée André, Julian Barth, Patrick Menegalli, Nicola Zali, Eloi Bernier, Arsenijs Danilko, Renata Mendoza, Matteo Piras, Estelle Baumann
School:
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Location:
Lausanne, Switzerland
Summary:
The EPFL Carbon Team, based in Lausanne, is developing a Direct Air Capture system to capture CO2 directly from the atmosphere. With a hybrid approach combining adsorbants and graphene membranes, we aim to create scalable, energy-efficient solution.
WatAir: Open-Source Moisture-Swing DAC System with Microalgae CO2 Sequestration
Team Members:
Robert Duff, Laurel Pierroz-Wong, Katherine Nguyen
School:
University of Waterloo
Location:
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Summary:
The WatAIR prototype is an open-source, open-access direct air capture (DAC) device employing a novel phosphate-activated moisture-swing adsorbent in fluidized bed reactor configuration and C. vulgaris microalgae for CO2 sequestration.
Carbon Capture Direct
Team Members:
Ethan Milroy, Robbie Carey, Harrison Waddell, Mateen Khalatbari, Peter Fleming
School:
Western University & Ivey Business School
Location:
London, Ontario, Canada
Summary:
How do we decarbonize effectively in a competitive business environment? CCD disrupts the CO₂ market by using an efficient DACC device. Promising low cost and on-site CO₂ to users. Low cost, reliable, innovative, Carbon Capture Direct.
ELECTROCEAN
Team Members:
Jason Qin, Faith Qin, Gabriel Boyd
School:
UC Berkley
Stanford University
Purdue University
Locations:
Berkeley, California, USA
Stanford, California, USA
West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
Summary:
We present a novel mCDR solution leveraging in-situ seawater electrolysis to durably sequester CO₂ as limestone while enhancing coastal ecosystems and co-producing hydrogen and aquaculture, yielding profits independent of carbon markets.
Terrapump
Team Members:
Aidan Mickleburgh
School:
University of Michigan
Location:
Ann Arbor, Michigan, US
Summary:
Terrapump seeks to utilize the solubility pump and kinetics of liquid-gas reactions to improve the durable sequestration of CO2 in the ocean by using a wave-powered compressor to push air through the water column through microbubbles.