Seabound receives ESA award and completes first full-scale carbon capture units

Seabound, a UK-based leader in marine carbon capture, marked a major commercial milestone last week with the completion of its first full-scale carbon capture systems during an event at the company’s research and development facility in Doncaster. Following successful land-based testing using a large diesel generator, the systems are set to be deployed aboard the UBC Cork, a 5700 gross t (GT) cement-carrying vessel.

Among the key announcements was a new partnership and €1.5 million in funding from the European Space Agency to support Seabound’s scale-up and commercial deployments. The company also announced a partnership with thyssenkrupp Polysius to produce green lime, enabling scalable and truly net-positive onboard carbon capture for global shipping.

“The maritime industry relies on space-based data and satellite communications every day,” said Nil Angli, Space Solutions Maritime Lead at the European Space Agency. “We are proud to partner with early-stage companies as they move from innovation to commercialisation, and Seabound is a model of what our Business Applications and Space Solutions programme is designed to support.”

The event, known as the “Seabound Sendoff”, brought together more than 70 attendees from local government, the maritime sector, lime manufacturing, and the investor community. Seabound staff led tours of the facility and walkthroughs of the company’s carbon capture technology, followed by a formal programme announcing new partnerships and product developments.

Seabound’s commercial milestone marks a significant step forward for maritime shipping, an industry responsible for approximately three percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and long regarded as one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonise. Motivated by the urgency of this challenge, Seabound was founded in late 2021 with the goal of bringing viable marine carbon capture to market. Since then, the company has completed two world-first pilot projects, raised more than £8.5 million in combined equity and grant funding, and won two rounds of the UK Government’s Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition.

“This moment represents years of engineering, testing, and collaboration finally coming together,” said Alisha Fredriksson, CEO and Co-founder of Seabound. “These systems will be the first of many over the years to come as we scale to even broader impact.”

Following successful pilots with Lomar Shipping, lomarlabs and Hapag-Lloyd, as well as with STAX Engineering and Wallenius Wilhelmsen, Seabound has now transitioned from pilots to commercial deployment. The initial full-scale systems will serve UBC Cork, a ship owned by Hartmann Group, managed by InterMaritime Shipmanagement, and chartered to global cement leader Heidelberg Materials.

“Seabound offers Heidelberg Materials a route to scope 3 emissions reductions that was previously unattainable for us,” said Lars Erik Marcussen, Project Manager, Logistics at Heidelberg Materials Northern Europe. “We now have a practical pathway to cutting our emissions in transport, and can move closer to delivering our net-zero concrete product.”

During the event, Seabound demonstrated its “Seabound Containers” – modular onboard carbon capture systems in the size of 20-foot shipping containers that trap CO₂ from a ship engine’s exhaust gas. In addition to CO2, the system removes sulfur emissions, helping shipowners comply with tightening environmental regulations, reduce fuel costs, and meet growing customer demand for low-carbon shipping. The company also unveiled its second-generation Seabound Containers, incorporating refinements from customer feedback to enable horizontal versus vertical arrangements on vessels along with improvements in capture efficiency and manufacturability.

Seabound’s Doncaster R&D facility, known as “Seabound North”, received funding from the UK Government's Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition in 2025 and served as the company’s hub for system development, testing, and integration. The location provides employment for highly-skilled engineering and manufacturing roles, supporting Seabound’s continued innovation and growth.

Seabound’s long-term mission is to capture 100 million tpy of CO2 by 2040, equivalent to roughly 10% of global shipping emissions. The company is actively engaging shipowners, cargo owners, ports, and industrial partners to accelerate adoption and maximise impact across the sector.

Read the article online at: https://www.drybulkmagazine.com/environment-sustainability/03022026/seabound-receives-esa-award-and-completes-first-full-scale-carbon-capture-units/