CALF-20 is designed to avoid the solvent degradation, corrosion, and high regeneration energy burden that make amines expensive to run on wet flue gas.

It can lower capture OPEX and CAPEX because is significantly reduces flue gas drying/dehydration (i.e pre-drying needs), which is especially important for gas-fired power, LNG, refining, and industrial heat.

CALF-20 actively rejects water, i.e. it is hydrophobic, retains useful CO2 capture capability over a wide humidity range humid. It is most potent up to around 40% RH, but capacity is still maintained even at higher humidity

CALF-20 variants are included in the original CALF-20 patent do take up CO2 but they are not as stable and are unproven industrially. Their stability is a concern, this is why the original form of CALF-20 is scaled and being commercialized.

CALF-20 can work in temperature swing adsorption (TSA), vacuum swing adsorption (VSA), pressure swing adsorption (PSA), or hybrid swing concepts like VPSA, with the best fit depending on the host process and available waste heat.

The literature shows strong cyclic stability, including industrial testing and long-duration demonstrations relevant to plant deployment. Under continuous operation, CALF-20 sorbent will last many years.

CALF-20 is low-risk because it is very insoluble and has low environmental mobility, which supports a simpler handling profile than liquid solvents.

Estimates of operating costs are about 18–30 USD/tCO2 captured excluding capital charges.

Compared with zeolites, CALF-20 maintains much better performance in wet gas, where zeolites require upstream drying and lose effective working capacity.

The biggest barrier is usually process integration with emission point sources, not the CALF-20 material itself; buyers plant-relevant testing, structured forms, and de-risked cost models. Existent Sorbents Inc. Is commercializing CALF-20 to support adoption and design of carbon capture processes

Pellets, extrudates, granules, and beads of CALF-20 are perfectly suited to constant-contact fixed-bed design reactors. Existent Sorbents Inc. is the exlusive source for these forms of CALF-20.

No, that is one of CALF-20’s core advantages; it is designed to tolerate humid gas and therefore reduce or eliminate dehydration demands.

Structured pellets, beads, laminates, hollow fiber, and monolith-like forms matter because they determine pressure drop, heat transfer, and cycle speed. Pellets, beads, extrudates, hollow fiber, and monolith-like forms are all available with CALF-20.

For many industrial users, a TSA or hybrid TSA/VSA architecture is attractive because it aligns with low-grade heat and humid flue gas.

Extensive published and industrial work emphasizes rapid uptake and release with CALF-20.

CALF-20 is robust under wet flue gas and acid-gas stress conditions, which is central to real post-combustion use.

All carbon capture plant sizes are available. Because CALF-20 can be shaped into many forms, it is highly adaptable to a wide array of engineering size scales and engineering types. This is particularly true for pellets, beads, granules, hollow fiber membranes, and monoliths. This forms of CALF-20 are being commercialized by Existent Sorbents Inc. for post-combustion carbon capture and many other types of carbon dioxide (CO2) separations

Unlike solvent systems, CALF-20 sorbent replacement is not meant to be a routine consumable strategy; the CALF-20 usage model can rely on long cycle life and low attrition.

The key risk is translating CALF-20 into forms that offer low-pressure-drop, thermally manageable, manufacturable structured products. Existent Sorbents Inc. is supplying shaped forms of CALF-20 like beads, pellets, extrudates, hollow fiber membranes, and monoliths that address and abate the engineering risk related to CALF-20.

Breakthrough curves, cyclic stability, packed-bed performance, and a full heat-and-material-balance model, and scalability of CALF-20 permit inclusion of CALF-20 as a real option.

CALF-20 is a zinc triazolate oxalate MOF with the composition [Zn2(1,2,4-triazolate)2(oxalate)].

It combines strong CO2 uptake with unexpectedly low water affinity (i.e. hydrophobicity) and CO2 can suppress water adsorption in competitive environments.

CO2 binding is dominated by dispersion interactions rather than a classic open-metal-site mechanism.

Its pore geometry and guest-guest competition disfavor water-network formation until higher RH, allowing CO2 to remain competitive.

The original CALF-20 still uptakes CO2 at high relative humidity, but at lower capacity. CALF-20 variants uptake CO2 at higher relative humidity, but they are not industrially proven.

The CALF-20 material can be made from commercially available zinc oxalate and triazole precursors.

Many MOFs fail commercialization because they need expensive linkers, metals, or toxic/aprotic solvents, and most often they are not stable; CALF-20 was highlighted as avoiding those traps.

CALF-20 robust to steam, wet flue gas, and repeated cycling, with phase retention under extremely demanding industrial conditions.

CALF-20 structural flexibility is key to it’s pore hydrophobicity, and CO2/H2O competitive adsorption, and high CO2 capacity.

CALF-20 targets one of the hardest decarbonization problems: carbon capture from wet industrial exhaust where alternatives are costly or fragile.

Gas-fired power, LNG, refining, petrochemicals, cement production, steam methane reforming, coal, biogas, steel production and other large emitters are near-term targets.

Potentially yes, because it enables emissions reductions without forcing immediate retirement of industrial assets that still provide essential energy and materials. CALF-20 also unlocks climate competitive energy and industrial products.

Yes. CALF-20 is a Canadian-developed material originating from University of Calgary research and later licensed for commercialization. Existent Sorbents Inc. is leading the broad commercialization of CALF-20 so it can become available to all industry and all carbon capture system builders.

Yes. A scalable CALF-20 sorbent supply chain and capture-system manufacturing base can anchor domestic cleantech jobs and exportable IP.

CALF-20 addresses point-source CO2, which remains one of the largest opportunities for near-term emissions reduction in heavy industry.

Like most first-of-kind breakthrough technologies, CALF-20’s impact is accelerated through policy support early on, but the key selling point is that CALF-20 lowers operating burden versus incumbent approaches.

By tons captured, system uptime, energy intensity, and cost per tonne in real industrial deployments, not just by lab uptake numbers.

Leveraging CALF-20, lower-cost capture at large emitters can reduce emissions while preserving industrial competitiveness and avoiding carbon leakage.

Several targeted policy actions would be most effective. First, investment tax credits and CCUS tax incentives — similar to the U.S. 45Q credit, which has been boosted to $85 per tonne of CO₂ captured and stored under the Inflation Reduction Act would directly improve project economics for Canadian industrial emitters adopting the technology. Second, procurement and demand-side commitments for low-carbon cement and steel could stimulate early adoption in sectors where CALF-20 has already been demonstrated. Third, expanded federal R&D co-investment in Existent Sorbents Inc. would secure Canadian supply chain leadership before foreign competitors replicate the technology. Fourth, regulatory streamlining for CCUS project approvals, particularly for geological storage in Alberta, would reduce deployment timelines. Finally, given that over 2,000 carbon capture plants are needed globally by 2040, Canada-led international partnerships through Existent Sorbents Inc. to export CALF-20-based materials and packed bed systems to allied nations could turn this University of Calgary innovation into a major clean technology export industry.

CALF-20 is applicable across the full breadth of hard-to-abate industrial emitters — sectors where electrification alone cannot eliminate CO₂ emissions. The material’s properties make it relevant to sectors including hydrogen production, cement, chemicals, steel, aluminium, and pulp and paper. These industries collectively account for a significant share of global industrial emissions. In the case of cement production, where two-thirds of emissions arise from chemical reactions related to heating limestone rather than from burning fossil fuels, carbon capture is currently the only scalable solution for reducing emissions. International Energy Agency Over 2,000 carbon capture plants need to be deployed globally by 2040 — the equivalent of commissioning two world-class CO₂ capture plants per week for the next 20 years. CALF-20 is currently the only commercially demonstrated MOF sorbent with the manufacturing pedigree to operate at that pace, making it a strategically vital Canadian asset in the global decarbonization supply chain.

CALF-20 is a direct product of sustained public investment in university-based science. The technology was developed over eight years in Dr. Shimizu’s lab at the University of Calgary and drew on collaborations with the University of Alberta’s Dr. Arvind Rajendran, the University of Ottawa’s Dr. Tom Woo.

CALF-20 is covered by patents and licensed fields of use. Existent Sorbents Inc. has been licensed vast majority of rights to CALF-20 from the University of Calgary.

Yes. The core material was published in Science, so novelty now tends to rest in improvements, formulations, processes, structured forms, and licensing of use cases by Existent Sorbents Inc.

Potentially yes, because methyl-triazolate variants and humidity-tolerant claims may create additional layer(s) of patent coverage. However, this varients are not industrially stable so their real-world potential is limited versus the original CALF-20.

Very important. The public record explicitly notes different licensed fields of use for related CALF-20 patents. The University of Calgary has licensed the vast majority of rights to Existent Sorbents Inc., a University of Calgary spinout that is broadly commercializing CALF-20 for carbon capture systems builders and industrial producers.

Yes, but it depends on the exact claims, geography, field of use, and whether the company is using licensed IP appropriately from Existent Sorbents Inc.

They will ask about claim scope, ownership chain, field restrictions, exclusivity, geographic coverage, and whether structured-product or process IP is separate from composition claims, and whether they have paid for the rights from Existent Sorbents Inc.

CALF-20 helps lower the cost and complexity of post-combustion capture from humid industrial sources, which is a major bottleneck in climate policy.

Because heavy industry and gas-related infrastructure are difficult to electrify quickly, so carbon capture remains a practical near-term pathway which is economically unlocked by CALF-20.

They should recognize that sorbent systems have different energy, safety, and emissions profiles than solvent systems, especially around water and waste handling.

Supporting CALF-20 for pilots, first-of-a-kind demonstrations, transport and storage infrastructure, and procurement mechanisms that reward verified capture performance.

Yes, because CALF-20 value depends on the avoided emissions cost relative to capture cost and plant-specific carbon price exposure. CALF-20 simplifies and makes carbon capture economical.

Capture rate, durability, energy per tonne, water sensitivity, impurity tolerance, sorbent loss, and real uptime under representative flue gas.

Because a lot of industrial CO2 streams are wet, and technologies that assume dry gas can look better on paper than they do in practice.

It is an enabling sorbent technology platform: useful on its own, but most valuable when integrated into the right contactor, cycle design, and storage chain. The optimal contactor designs like beads, pellets, extrudates, granules, hollow fiber membranes, and monoliths are being commercialized by Existent Sorbents Inc.

If governments want deep industrial decarbonization, they need to back capture technologies like CALF-20 that work on real flue gas, not just ideal lab feeds. Innovation funding for Existent Sorbents Inc. which is broadly commercializing CALF-20 can accelerate access to CALF-20 for industry.

Canada has committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is recognized in federal policy as essential to decarbonizing hard-to-abate industrial sectors. CALF-20 provides a domestically invented, commercially demonstrated pathway to that goal. Multiple large scale deployments proves that the technology can be deployed at industrial facilities today, not in some distant hypothetical future. The results are being watched closely by large CO₂-emitting industries such as Alberta’s energy sector, which is actively searching for commercially viable technologies to remove gases from emissions. Wider deployment could help Canada’s oil sands, natural gas, cement, and chemical producers meet their obligations under carbon pricing frameworks, while simultaneously positioning Canada as a global supplier of the underlying carbon capture material — a clean technology export with no current rival.

Existent Sorbent’s Inc. has been licensed the vast majority of rights to CALF-20 and is broadly commercializing CALF-20 as beads, pellets, granules, extrudates, hollow fiber membranes, and monoliths so that CALF-20 technology can be accessed by carbon capture systems builders and industry energy and products producers.