Muscat: A joint Omani-British project dubbed ‘Hajar’ won an international prize dedicated to developing the best technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions.
The award was founded by Tesla chief and billionaire Elon Musk to motivate technology companies to provide solutions to the problems of climate change and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Project Hajar combines two integrated technologies to remove thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide in the Hajar Mountains in the Sultanate of Oman. The project will be fully powered by renewable energy. It combines MZT’s direct air capture electrochemical (DAC) technology with permanent insulation capabilities from Oman-based 44.01 using mineralization technology in peridotite formations. CO2 will be efficiently collected from the atmosphere and transferred in underground peridotite, a mineral that has the potential for removing CO2 from the atmosphere and is abundant in Oman.
More than 1,100 teams from around the world participated in the competition and nearly 300 were shortlisted for the Milestone Prizes earlier this year.