Shell Plc and Eni SpA have led an early stage funding round for climate technology start-up Mantel Capture which aims to use molten salts to capture carbon dioxide emissions at refineries, factories and other industrial sites.

Mantel is a startup out of MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering and has raised $30 million in Series A funding to implement a demonstration project at an industrial site. The demonstration will pave the way to full-scale commercial deployment of its high-temperature carbon capture systems.

According to a Mantel press release, the firm’s technology has already demonstrated carbon capture at lab scale of half a metric ton per day, and the upcoming project will be around 10 times larger, rated to capture 1,800 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions per year at an industrial site.

Molten borates are the only high-temperature liquid-phase carbon capture material able to capture CO₂ at the source of emission. By operating at high temperatures, Mantel’s systems recover high-grade heat, thus offsetting the energy necessary to regenerate the molten borate material. The resulting efficiencies reduce capture costs by more than half compared to conventional amine-based technologies.

Said Mantel Co-Founder and CEO Cameron Halliday, “With support from both investors and industry leaders, we are eager to showcase the effectiveness of Mantel’s technology across industrial applications and demonstrate its potential to be the lowest cost pathway to net zero emissions for our industrial customers.”