United Airlines announced today a $15 million investment in carbon capture and removal technology provider Svante, forming part of the airline’s plans to scale the production and utilization of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) made from materials including captured CO2.

Founded in 2007, Burnaby, British Columbia-based Svante provides structured adsorbent beds – or filters – and modular rotary contactor machines that capture and remove CO2 from industrial emissions, aimed at enabling emissions intensive industries to capture large-scale emissions from existing infrastructure. The company’s solutions are targeted at industrial decarbonization activities in areas such as hydrogen, pulp and paper, lime, cement, steel, aluminum, and chemicals, and the technology can also be used for Direct Air Capture (DAC) solutions.

The investment, part of Svante’s recently announced $318 million Series E financing, was made from the recently launched United Airlines Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund. Established last month with over $100 million of investments from United, and partners including Air Canada, Boeing, GE Aerospace, JPMorgan Chase, and Honeywell, the fund is aimed at investing in and supporting startups focused on SAF research, technology and production.

Claude Letourneau, Svante’s President & CEO, said:

“We are pleased to have the support of United Airlines as one of our world-class investors. The airline industry has a huge opportunity to make a big impact on global decarbonization – battling climate change through the transition to sustainable aviation fuels and other innovative technologies that will help the world achieve net zero.”

United Airlines has committed to fully reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 without relying on carbon offsets. One of the airline’s recent SAF announcements included an investment in CO2 utilization company Dimensional Energy, which uses carbon dioxide emissions to make fuels. United also agreed to purchase at least 300 million gallons of SAF over 20 years, produced from repurposed carbon dioxide. In its statement announcing today’s investment, United noted that Svante was working with Dimensional Energy.

Jason Salfi, Dimensional Energy’s CEO, said:

“The teams at Svante and Dimensional Energy are working together to design integrated systems for captured CO2 to SAF today. There is enough CO2 in the atmosphere and in industrial process emissions to provide all of the carbon necessary for the fuels and products people use every day now and into the future.”

United CEO Scott Kirby, added:

“Carbon capture technology has the potential to be a critical solution in the fight to stop climate change and has the added benefit of helping us scale the production of SAF. And at United we’re building on that approach by investing in both companies that can capture CO2 and others that can turn it into fuel. There’s no question that this carbon utilization is in its infancy today, but as a leader in sustainable flying we must help build the foundation to deploy this technology of the future as expediently as possible.”