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The OCOchem team. CEO and co-founder Todd Brix is in the front row, fifth from left. (OCOchem Photo)
OCOchem, a startup turning captured carbon dioxide into a valuable industrial chemical, is completing construction of its pilot plant in Eastern Washington.
Once the 40,000-square-foot facility is commissioned in the coming months, OCOchem will start using its electrolyzer cells to turn CO2 into formic acid and other formate compounds. These chemicals can replace petroleum as a feedstock for products such as clean hydrogen fuel, animal feed and fertilizer.
CEO and co-founder Todd Brix said they’ll start shipping sample products to customers later this year.
The Richland, Wash., company has raised a total of $7.5 million from investors, and $8.3 million in government grants. OCOchem has 18 employees and partnerships with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, multiple universities and industrial companies.
Last year the company completed a project with the U.S. Army that successfully scaled the technology ten-fold from an earlier design. The pilot plant will take the cells to even bigger sizes.
The team is continuing to work on the formate-producing technology to make it more efficient and inexpensive. But the level of “technical risk” for the endeavor has gone down, Brix said, now that OCOchem has reached this phase of development.
The long-term business model for OCOchem is to colocate alongside operations that are trapping carbon dioxide and need something to do with it — which could include facilities such as biogas and bioethanol producers or direct air capture companies that suck the climate gas from the atmosphere.
Brix said that using CO2 as a carbon source for making formic acid will be cost competitive compared to fossil fuels and their fluctuating prices, and is much better for the environment.
“We think converting CO2 into value-added products that you can make money on — and make for less than fossil fuels — is what accelerates decarbonization from the inside out,” Brix said.
Investments worldwide in carbon and emissions technology slumped to $12.2 billion last year, dropping from an all-time high of $20.4 billion in 2023, according to a recent PitchBook analysis.
Trump administration efforts to unwind climate policies and supports creates uncertainty for the sector. However, many of the federally funded carbon projects benefit conservative-leaning states, which could make them harder for GOP leaders to eliminate, according to PitchBook. Data center growth is driving interest in carbon capture, but the two industries often compete for clean energy to power their technologies.
Brix launched OCOchem in 2017.
