Divea

Swiss clean technology company Divea was founded in 2024 as an EPFL spin-off, and is dedicated to the research and development of graphene filters. 

Divea has developed a new type of carbon dioxide filter based on graphene materials. By creating pores the size of carbon dioxide on the single - atom layer of graphene, this filter can directly separate carbon dioxide from the mixed gases in industrial waste gases, making carbon capture economically viable for industries with high carbon dioxide emissions, such as steel, cement, metals, and natural gas. Compared with existing technologies, Divea's filter has lower costs and higher energy efficiency.

Divea's technology is based on the research results of a paper titled "Millisecond Lattice Vaporization for High - Density Sieving Nanopores in Monolayer Graphene" published by Kumar Agrawal in Science Advances. Through millisecond lattice vaporization and vacancy defect technology, high - density nanopores with sub - angstrom precision are etched in monolayer graphene.

In the manufacturing process, Divea first synthesizes graphene and then creates tiny pores on its surface similar in size to carbon dioxide molecules. These pores function like sieves, allowing only carbon dioxide molecules to pass through while blocking other gases larger than carbon dioxide molecules, such as nitrogen, thus achieving separation from other molecules. Finally, Divea rolls the porous graphene membrane into a roll and installs it in a device at the industrial emission source site. This device is connected to the flue gas and can directly remove carbon dioxide from it. The absorbed carbon dioxide will be permanently stored or used to produce other derivative products. 

The graphene membrane prepared by Divea has multiple advantages. It can significantly reduce enterprises' energy consumption and costs, providing an economically viable carbon reduction solution for smelters of low - concentration fluids such as aluminum. At the same time, the graphene membrane only requires electricity to operate, does not need heating, and does not use solvents, avoiding environmental pollution caused by solvent volatilization into the atmosphere and further expanding the application fields of the technology. Moreover, the graphene membrane has a compact structure, is easy to install, and can be modularly assembled, enabling carbon capture in places with limited space such as offshore oil platforms.

Divea has become one of the industrial partners of the CCUS demonstration project at EPFL. The two parties are collaborating to promote the large - scale production and commercialization of high - performance graphene membranes and plan to build a full - scale carbon capture plant by 2032.