How two young women are revolutionising direct air capture with supercapacitor technology

In this episode, we speak with Silvia Pugliese and Monica Larrazabal, co-founders of Norma and the only all-female founding team among the c.150 direct air capture startups operating today. They share how their breakthrough supercapacitor approach could drastically slash the energy requirements of carbon capture.

Pugliese and Larrazabal discuss:

• How they discovered a way to "cheat" on energy requirements by combining supercapacitor energy storage technology with CO2 capture, creating a hybrid device that recycles energy through each capture cycle.
• Their modular approach with desk-sized units that can be deployed anywhere, contrasting with competitors' massive industrial facilities requiring hundreds of millions in funding.
• The company's measured approach to cost projections, deliberately avoiding the over-promising that has plagued the DAC industry, while still targeting dramatic improvements over current $600-1000 per tonne costs.
• Securing pre-seed funding led by Contrarian VC, known for rigorous DAC due diligence, and landing MilkyWire as their first commercial client despite being in early development stages.
• Their 2025-2030 roadmap: pilot testing in 2026, first commercial facility by 2029, and targeting megatonne-scale operations by 2030.
• How airlines could use their CO2 for e-fuel production, with potential applications ranging from direct air capture and storage to point source capture, leveraging the technology's versatility.

The founders also discuss the challenges of being female entrepreneurs in a male-dominated deep tech sector, their base in central Paris near the Marie Curie museum, and their vision of normalising female-led climate tech companies by 2035.

Larrazabal explains why the DAC industry is in its "innovation decade" similar to renewable energy in the 1960s-70s, and why they believe they've found the "solar PV moment" for carbon capture.

Learn more about the innovators who are navigating the industry's challenges to make sustainable aviation a reality, in our new book 'Sustainability in the Air: Volume 2'. Click here to learn more.

Feel free to reach out via email to podcast@simpliflying.com. For more content on sustainable aviation, visit our website green.simpliflying.com and join the movement. It's about time.

Links & more:

• Norma
• Contrarian VC
• MilkyWire
• Heirloom Carbon (Monica's former employer)
• Marble - Climate Tech Accelerator (where Norma was incubated)