Coinciding with British Science Week and the recent IPCC report, ViridiCO2’s mini-documentary is released today, and is available to watch in full here – https://youtu.be/lqE21efItIA
The mini-documentary hears from leaders in research and industry alongside Dr Daniel Stewart, CEO and co-founder of ViridiCO2, to understand the journey from the lab to the launch of a spinout pursuing the goal of getting to net carbon negative.
Dan’s early interest in the environment and his scientific curiosity led him to pursue a PhD at the University of Southampton’s School of Chemistry. This resulted in his discovery of a hybrid catalyst platform that can efficiently and sustainably convert carbon dioxide into versatile materials. The method of Carbon Capture Utilisation (CCU) is a major step towards the UK achieving net zero by 2050, and, for Dr Stewart, should prompt us to go further with our goal, all the way to net negative.
By using a novel chemistry solution in the manufacturing processes, the carbon loop can be closed. The mini-documentary presents to the viewer, in layman’s terms, how Dr Daniel Stewart’s startup will allow us to utilise carbon emissions, instead of them being released into the atmosphere. The otherwise polluting carbon emissions can be used to manufacture many of the consumer goods each of us uses only a daily basis reducing fossil fuel usage to create virgin materials.
The ViridiCO2 platform was recognised by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) as a winner of its prestigious 2020 Emerging Technologies Competition.
Sharing the founder’s perspective, Daniel Stewart MChem, PhD, MRSC, is a former EPSRC IAA Research fellow within the School of Chemistry at the University of Southampton. Professor Robert Raja is Chief Scientific Advisor of ViridiCO2 and fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and provides a research perspective alongside Professor Gill Reid, President-Elect of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Future Worlds Studio Manager, Alex Dunlop said “We’re delighted to be able to use this captivating series to shine a spotlight on the next generation of startup founders emerging from the University of Southampton. This mini-documentary provides a fascinating insight into what Dan is achieving with ViridiCO2, and acts as a great example of positive impact the start-ups supported by Future Worlds are having in the real world”
The mini-documentary is the first in a Founder Stories mini-documentary series that tells the stories of spinouts from the University of Southampton that are building on research to pursue transformational impact in the world. The series is produced by Future Worlds, the on-campus startup accelerator at the University of Southampton.
