The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management announced seven teams as semifinalists for the Direct Air Capture (DAC) Pre-Commercial Technology Prize. The DAC Tech Prize provides $4 million in cash prizes and technical assistance vouchers to teams that identify a critical need in the DAC industry, develop a solution to address this gap, and test the idea to a degree of scale. 

The semifinalists, representing five states, will each receive $100,000 in cash prizes and $50,000 in technical assistance for their winning concepts in the initial Develop Phase of the prize.

Congratulations to our semifinalist teams:

  • Arizona Board of Regents (team: Team CNCE) – Tempe, Arizona 
  • Capture6 Corp (team: Capture6) – Berkeley, California 
  • Carbon To Stone Inc. (team: Carbon To Stone) – Ithaca, New York 
  • Elysia Labs LLC (team: Elysia Labs) – Phoenix, Arizona 
  • Giner, Inc (team: Giner DAC) – Newton, Massachusetts 
  • Holocene Climate Corporation (team: Holocene) – Knoxville, Tennessee 
  • Nūxsen LLC (team: Team Nūxsen) – New York, New York 

The semifinalist teams will move on to the Design Phase, where up to three finalists will each win $500,000 in cash prizes plus $150,000 in technical assistance, as well as earn a chance to compete for a grand prize of $1 million.  

The DAC Tech Prize is part of the American-Made DAC Prizes, a suite of separate but connected prizes that were developed to address the numerous steps involved in moving an innovation from idea to market. 

Read more about the semifinalists and learn about the DAC Tech Prize competition on energy.gov