Swedish tech company Cestore AB has announced the development of a new process for cost-effective and large-scale permanent carbon dioxide storage, where emissions are converted into stable, natural salts. Together with compatriot Nynas AB, a specialty chemicals company providing bitumen and naphthenic solutions, the technology will now be tested in an industrial environment, with support from the Swedish Energy Agency.
Carbon capture and storage, CCS, is something of the “holy grail” of climate change and has long been seen as crucial for industry’s climate change transition, but cost, complexity, and infrastructure requirements have made the technology difficult to access.
Founded in 2023, Cestore is developing a solution that it says could be a game-changer, as it has developed a process technology that converts captured carbon dioxide (CO2) into stable, water-soluble salts for permanent storage, directly on-site in the industry, without the need for compression, transport, or geological storage.
The technology enables industries to achieve both net zero and permanent negative emissions at a lower cost and directly at the site where the emissions occur.
In our process, CO2 gas is converted into natural, stable salts that are chemically stored in water, in the same way that the oceans naturally bind carbon over thousands of years. This allows storage to take place locally, directly where the emissions occur, explained Johanna Hultén, CEO of Cestore and the innovator behind the process concept.
The fact that the CO2 gas is converted into natural salts that can be added to the sea and waterways means that there is no need for costly handling of the gas, such as long-distance transport, gas pipelines, or compression, compared to geological storage.
If this technology works as we believe and hope, it will be an extremely cost-effective way to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions. The process is also “energy positive”, which means that electrical energy is produced in the process, which is another advantage, noted Johanna Hultén.
Aiming for rapid commercialization
In spring 2025, the company completed a scaled-up prototype – approximately 30 times larger than the first lab tests – and the technology was independently verified by RISE at technology readiness level four (TRL4), meaning that it has been experimentally demonstrated in a lab environment and that the central functions work in practice according to the Swedish Energy Agency’s definition.
In conjunction with the verification, Cestore filed two patent applications that protect the core concept behind the electrochemical process that converts CO2 into stable, water-soluble salts.
The technology has major advantages over other CCS technologies used today. Firstly, the process can be integrated directly at the emission source, and CO2 is converted into stable salts that are easy to handle, which eliminates risk, complexity, and costs. There is the possibility of extracting electrical energy from the process, which further contributes to the technology’s potential, said Johanna Hultén.
With the TRL4 prototype verified and IP protection in place, Cestore is continuing work towards the next phase: scale-up, pilot operation, and preparations for full-scale commercial implementation.
We believe that the climate infrastructure of the future must be scalable, robust, and close, both in geography and in time. Our goal is for Swedish industry to be able to put this solution into operation in the near future, already within a couple of years, Johanna Hultén said.
Pilot project with Nynas
Recently, Cestore was granted SEK 3 million (≈ EUR 282,900) in support from the Swedish Energy Agency for the pilot project “Maris”, which is led by Cestore with Nynas AB as industrial partner and co-financier.
Nynas operations in Nynäshamn include a hydrogen production facility that emits around 60,000 tonnes of CO2 annually.
According to Peter Eriksson, Technical Director at Nynas, Cestore’s technology has great potential to take the industry’s climate transition forward in practice.
For a point source like ours, a solution like this could be crucial – not least in combination with future biogenic fuels such as biogas. The project gives us the opportunity to explore a technology that has the potential to create both emission reductions and negative emissions, which can play an important role in Nynas’s long-term climate work, said Peter Eriksson.
The project is the first of its kind, and the goal is to have a pilot plant in operation (TRL 6) as early as summer 2026.
The pilot project will also investigate the technical, economic, and regulatory conditions for a full-scale facility at Nynas’ production facility with the capacity to store around 50,000 tonnes of CO2 annually.
We see a great need for new, effective climate solutions, and Cestore’s technology is a very exciting example of how permanent storage of carbon dioxide can be made simpler, closer, and more cost-effective, stated Peter Eriksson.
