Oxy buys direct-air-capture firm Holocene

Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) has purchased the direct-air-capture (DAC) company Holocene for an undisclosed sum. This is the energy company’s second recent purchase of a carbon capture firm; in 2023, it bought Carbon Engineering for $1.1 billion. Both DAC firms use forms of chemical looping to remove carbon dioxide from the ambient air as a pure, concentrated stream that can be injected into geological storage or sold. Holocene collects the CO 2 through chemical combination with an amino acid dissolved in water. It then reacts that complex with a guanidine-based chemical that binds CO 2 , and the product precipitates as a solid, regenerating the amino acid. Heating that solid releases pure CO 2 and regenerates the guanidine. Carbon Engineering has two intersecting loops as well but instead grabs CO 2 from the air with potassium hydroxide and passes it to calcium carbonate before the heat-driven CO 2 -release step. In