NitroCapt: Disrupting the Nitrogen Fertilizer Industry in Sweden
For thousands of years, humans have added fertilizer to improve soil nutrition. Historically, we have used mineral and organic fertilizers, like manure or ground-up bone, to make our food grow heartier and faster. In the last century, human-made fertilizers have helped us feed our growing planet even more efficiently. But this has caused great environmental damage, and worldwide, agriculture is the second-largest cause of climate change. Nitrogen fertilizers in particular represent a catch-22 problem: they account for 50% of the world’s food production support but emit as much carbon dioxide (CO2) as the aviation industry — a whopping total of roughly 1.1 gigatons of CO2 equivalent annually. Valued worldwide at around €80 billion, it runs on a fossil-dependent process that is badly in need of an overhaul.
Enter NitroCapt, an Uppsala-based climate-tech company that developed a novel, energy efficient process for a disruptive electrification of the global nitrogen fertilizer industry. NitroCapt has invented a unique plasma process that simultaneously maximizes the production rate and minimizes the energy consumed for nitrogen fixation. Since the company is not taking the vastly energy consuming route via ammonia, but instead a nitrate route which in theory is 11 times more energy-efficient, NitroCapt claims to be able to compete in energy efficiency with the most efficient fossil-based production process for nitrogen fertilizer—being more cost-efficient and greener than fertilizers based on both fossil fuels and green ammonia.
Through years of research since they were first established in 2016, NitroCapt conclude that their plasma-produced nitrate will be the most powerful solution to address problems associated with nitrogen fertilizers on a broad scale. According to the initiative, plasma-produced nitrate offers: an outstanding production economy, matching the needs of global large-acre crops and giving strong incentive for a fast transition of the industry; the lowest total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of any synthetic green nitrogen fertilizer; the best agronomic properties, with a positive impact on soil fertility; and resilient production on a moderate scale that is immune to disruptions to international trade.
NitroCapt has established a pilot program that is currently being implemented in Sweden and plans to implement in France, though their long-term goal is to see plasma-produced nitrate used worldwide. The company reports that they have LOIs (letters of intent) from customers for 31 full-scale plants, each one with a capacity to provide fertilizer for 50,000–80,000 hectares of farmland. When implemented, NitroCapt believes this will reduce GHGs by close to 1million tons per year. The production units are set up in containers that are easy to mount and ship, which means scalability will not be an issue. NitroCapt states that their goal is to install 1400 units within 10 years, resulting in annual emission reductions of nearly 100 million tons of CO2 equivalents in 2034, which represents more than double Sweden’s total emissions as a country (45 million tons of CO2 equivalents in 2023).
In addition, NitroCapt claims that their technology has the potential to become a solution to provide affordable nitrogen fertilizers to increase food production in developing countries. A new way of growing food and feeding our planet is here.
Learn more about NitroCapt.
Written by Sarah Souli
Images provided by NitroCapt
