NEWARK — A unique joint partnership focused on designing and commercializing technology to harvest water for HVAC systems, military operations and more will be investing $15 million in a new manufacturing facility in Newark.
AirJoule LLC, a 50-50 venture between GE Verona and Montana Technologies, received approval from the Council on Development Finance (CDF) on Monday morning for $1 million in state taxpayer-backed grant money to open the 30,000 square feet of research and development facility in Delaware Industrial Park on Shea Way.
The award from the state breaks down to $540,000 in job performance grants to create 60 jobs in the next three years as well as $460,650 in a capital expenditure grant to renovate its new facility
AirJoule has refined a metal organic framework, or a porous material that can trap water at relatively low humidity levels. With its specific fabric and a dual vacuum chamber, AirJoule is able to capture water molecules from ambient air, recycling it as distilled water or dehumidified air. The partnership is targeting air conditioning, data center cooling and atmospheric water harvesting processes to overcome water scarcity.
“Using these metal framework technologies, you can reduce the consumption by 50 to 75%. We can use this technology to pull atmospheric water vapor out of the air at record low energetics and within a form that makes sense to deploy this to troops on the ground,” AirJoule Vice President of Business Development Matthew Grandbois told council members.
“This technology is revolutionary and it’s one of the many reasons I’m excited about this,” he added.
AirJoule plans to bring 60 jobs, including chemical engineers, chemists and technicians, as well as unskilled positions, to the state. Those jobs include salaries between $60,000 and $100,000 over the next few years. Right now, the venture is leasing 500 square feet of space at the Innovation Station in Wilmington’s DuPont Experimental Station for a research and development facility.
Right now, the venture has developed a prototype that can process 200 liters of water a day. The prototype is roughly the size of a portable grill.
The companies behind the project have heavy experience with air dehumidification products. GE Vernova is a publicly-traded global leader in electrification, decarbonization and energy solutions that generates approximately 30% of the world’s electricity and serves many of the world’s leading utilities and large industrial electricity users. Montana Technologies is a publicly traded corporation that developed the AirJoule system based on a concept developed by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
But with the new Newark facility, Aijoule Vice President of Operations Jonathan Tracy said that the group is ready to develop a carrier unit to hit the market. This would be targeted for industrial warehouses or apartment complexes, many of which have to update HVAC units per energy regulations.
Other products would include mobile units designed for military operations or humanitarian efforts that could generate 1,000 liters of water a day, based on access to energy sources.
“Our plan is that in 2024 we will continue to make some at that size so we can get them in the hands of our partners. In parallel, we are looking to get that first commercial size to get on market for mid to next year,” Tracy said.
While the primary market includes industrial complexes, Grandbois said that the next step is to advance further in military applications and agriculture practices. Data centers may be a targeted market that surprises him next.
“Data centers are interesting things. Every time you use ChatGPT, it uses 10 milliliters of water,” he said. “ So there’s a lot of water used across that space.”