New Delhi: For the first time in the world, Climeworks, a Swiss company, has developed a commercial plant that captures atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from the air and then uses it to grow vegetables.


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Developers say the Climeworks AG facility opened near Zurich last week can capture about 900 tons of CO2 from the air each year - equivalent to the amount that is emitted by 200 cars.


How the Climeworks carbon sucking plant woks?


The plant captures CO2 from the air with a filter. During the capture process, CO2 is chemically deposited on the filter surface. When the filter is saturated, the CO2 is then isolated at a temperature of about 100 degrees Celsius. The captured CO2 gas is then sent through an underground pipeline to a greenhouse to help grow vegetables, like cucumbers and tomatoes.


The plant is a historic step for negative emissions technology - earmarked by the Paris climate agreement as being vital in the quest to limit a global temperature rise of 2 °C.


"Highly scalable negative emission technologies are crucial if we are to stay below the 2-degree target [for global temperature rise] of the international community," Christoph Gebald, co-founder and managing director of Climeworks, was quoted as saying to Science, referring to the climate change threshold set by the Paris climate deal.


The plant is being seen as a historic step for negative emissions technology - earmarked by the Paris climate agreement as being vital in the quest to limit a global temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius.


Gebald, along with Jan Wurzbacher, established Climeworks in 2009 after working on air capture during postgraduate studies in Zurich.