The archive · Climate & Energy · Strategic decision · 2021–2026
Equatic bets ocean CO2 removal can scale, building the world's largest plant in Singapore
UCLA-founded Equatic turned a S$1M challenge win into Equatic-1, the world's largest ocean carbon-removal plant, set to start in Tuas in Q1 2026.
Equatic
What the business is
Equatic, an American startup founded out of UCLA, removes carbon dioxide from seawater with a patented electrolysis process that also produces green hydrogen; it sells carbon-removal credits and hydrogen while building demonstration and commercial plants with national partners.
Starting capital：Equatic won S$1 million from Temasek Foundation's The Liveability Challenge in 2021 as SeaChange; the Equatic-1 plant is a US$20 million facility co-funded by PUB, Singapore's National Research Foundation and UCLA's Institute for Carbon Management; a US$11.6 million Series A closed in August 2025.
How it started
Equatic was founded around research at UCLA's Institute for Carbon Management and entered Singapore through Temasek Foundation's The Liveability Challenge in 2021, winning S$1 million in catalytic funding under its former name SeaChange. The premise was that the ocean, which already absorbs roughly 30% of human CO2 emissions, could absorb more if chemistry changed the seawater being returned to it — a route to carbon removal that does not compete for land the way forests or direct-air-capture plants do.
What happened
Two pilot plants, one at PUB's desalination research site in Tuas and one at the Port of Los Angeles, began removing 100 kg of CO2 per day in April 2023. Equatic then committed to Equatic-1: a US$20 million demonstration plant at Tuas co-funded by PUB, Singapore's National Research Foundation and UCLA, designed to start at 1 tonne of CO2 per day and scale to 10 tonnes — roughly the annual tailpipe output of 870 cars — while producing about 300 kg of hydrogen daily. The schedule slipped from an original late-2024 target while system designs were finalized, and on 2025-08-11 the company closed a US$11.6 million Series A led by Temasek Trust's C3H with Kibo Invest as co-lead, earmarked for engineering its first commercial-scale, 100-kilotonne facility.
How it ended up
As of late August 2025 Equatic-1 was still expected to begin operations in the first quarter of 2026, with initial installation phases due to start by end-September 2025; the company was simultaneously engineering its first commercial-scale carbon-removal facility in North America, and counted Boeing among buyers of its carbon-removal credits.
Background
Equatic, an American startup founded out of UCLA's Institute for Carbon Management, bet that the ocean could become a scalable carbon-removal machine. Its patented seawater electrolysis removes dissolved CO2 from water drawn in from nearby desalination plants — turning it into limestone-like solids that can hold the gas for more than 10,000 years — while the same process splits water into hydrogen, giving the company a second product to sell.
The company entered Singapore through Temasek Foundation's The Liveability Challenge, winning S$1 million in 2021 under its former name SeaChange, and proved the technology at two pilots in April 2023 that each removed 100 kg of CO2 a day. It then committed to Equatic-1, a US$20 million demonstration plant at Tuas co-funded by national water agency PUB, Singapore's National Research Foundation and UCLA, designed to scale from 1 to 10 tonnes of CO2 per day and produce about 300 kg of hydrogen daily.
The original late-2024 schedule slipped while system designs were finalized, with operations expected in Q1 2026. In August 2025 Equatic closed a US$11.6 million Series A led by Temasek Trust's C3H vehicle with Singapore investment office Kibo Invest as co-lead — support the company planned to use for engineering its first commercial-scale, 100-kilotonne facility in North America — while experts cautioned that marine carbon-removal methods remain young and must be monitored for their effect on ocean chemistry and marine life.
What has to be true
- The ocean already absorbs about 30% of human CO2 emissions, so amplifying that natural sink avoids the land and water demands of tree-planting and direct-air-capture approaches.
- Producing hydrogen in the same electrolysis step gives the process a second revenue stream, making carbon removal more than a pure cost center for buyers of credits.
- Partnering with PUB gave Equatic real infrastructure, regulatory oversight and a credible home for a technology that needs to prove it can run at engineering scale, not just in a lab.
- A demonstration plant deliberately precedes the commercial one: Equatic-1's 10-tonne-per-day output is the rehearsal for the 100-kilotonne facility the Series A was raised to engineer.
What can be applied
A climate startup can trade a headline milestone for a partner: PUB's name, site and co-funding gave a novel marine technology the institutional credibility that no amount of marketing could buy.
Aftermath
As of 2025-08-24 Equatic was between milestones: Equatic-1 in Tuas was expected to start in Q1 2026 after design-driven delays, and the US$11.6 million Series A announced August 11 was funding engineering of its first commercial-scale North American facility. Its ISO-14064 monitoring, validated by registries Isometric and Puro.earth, backed credits sold to Boeing, and its 2024 Earthshot finalist status put the Tuas plant forward as the test of whether ocean carbon removal works at a scale regulators and scientists will accept.
Sources
- World's largest facility to help remove CO2 from the ocean to begin operations in Singapore in 2026
- Temasek Trust's Catalytic Capital for Climate and Health leads Equatic's US$11.6 million Series A financing
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