From pollutant to product: the companies making stuff from CO2

Vodka, jet fuel, protein... according to a new clutch of carbon-to-value startups, these are just some of the things that can be manufactured from thin air

In a warehouse laboratory in Berkeley, California, Nicholas Flanders stands in front of a shiny metal box about the size of a washing machine. Inside is a stack of metal plates that resemble a club sandwich - only the filling is a black polymer membrane coated with proprietary metal catalyst. We call the membrane the black leaf," he says.

Flanders is the co-founder and CEO of Twelve, a startup founded in 2015, which received a $57m funding boost in July. It aims to take air - or, to be more precise, the carbon dioxide (CO₂) in it - and transform it into something useful, as plants also do, eliminating damaging emissions in the process. Taking the unwanted gas wreaking havoc on our climate and using only water and renewable electricity, Twelve's metal box houses a new kind of electrolyser that transforms the CO₂ into synthesis gas (syngas), a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen that can be made into a range of familiar products usually made from fossil fuels. Oxygen is the only by-product. This August, the pilot scale equipment made the syngas that went into what Flanders claims is the world's first carbon neutral, fossil-free jet fuel produced by electrolysing CO₂. This is a new way of moving carbon through our economy without pulling it out of the ground," he says.