3M partners with Canada firm to make materials that will remove carbon dioxide from the air

Maplewood-based 3M is partnering with a Canadian company to manufacture materials that can remove carbon dioxide from the air.

The joint development agreement announced Tuesday will see 3M scale up production of Svante's carbon-absorbing filters that lock away unwanted CO2.

"This is an industry that's forming, this is a market that's forming, and we're really looking forward to developing the market together," Sam Tutterow, director of strategy and business development for 3M's personal safety division, told the Star Tribune. "We see this as global in scale."

Svante's filters and machines can take thousands of tons of CO2 from the air per day and ship them in pipelines — some of which have run into landowner resistance — for storage underground or industrial reuse.

The company's technology differs from traditional carbon-capture by using solid materials rather than liquids — in this case a nanomaterial called a sorbent that 3M will manufacture at a commercial scale following an 18-month pilot project.

The partnership comes as 3M expands its climate-tech commitments as part of a company-wide transformation.

Svante CEO Claude Letourneau estimates there are 10 gigatons (10 billion tons) of carbon emissions needing capture and storage, about a quarter of the world's annual human-caused carbon output.

"That's the goal," Letourneau said in an interview, but it will take many players to reach that scale. "We're trying to have our first million-ton-per-year plant deployed in direct air capture by 2030."

3M Ventures recently took part in a $318 million fundraising round for Burnaby, British Columbia-based Svante. The company has also received backing from the U.S. and Canadian governments, oil companies and other industrial firms, such as General Electric and Samsung.