VTT and Mitsubishi Electric establish core technology for Direct Ocean Capture

News, Press release

09.06.2026 10:30 EEST

Espoo, Finland / Tokyo, Japan – 9 June 2026 – Achieving long-term climate targets will require not only deep emissions reductions, but also scalable carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solutions. Mitsubishi Electric and VTT are now taking a significant step forward by advancing Direct Ocean Capture (DOC) technology from early-stage development toward pilot-scale validation.

As global climate targets become increasingly ambitious, interest in scalable CDR solutions continues to grow. DOC is emerging as a promising approach for addressing residual emissions by removing CO₂ from the atmosphere–ocean system, complementing conventional emissions reduction strategies. Seawater contains much higher concentrations of inorganic carbon per unit volume than air, making DOC a potentially efficient and scalable pathway for CO₂ removal and capture.

Since initiating their collaboration in late 2024, Mitsubishi Electric and VTT have rapidly progressed the development of an electrochemical DOC solution. The collaboration has successfully moved the concept from early-stage research toward technology validation and future demonstration planning.

“This is exactly the type of long-term, high-impact challenge that can translate research into real-world breakthroughs,” comments Antti Arasto, Vice President at VTT and project lead of the collaboration. “Through strong commitment and focused development efforts, we have achieved significant technological progress in a short time. Our collaboration with Mitsubishi Electric has now advanced DOC to a stage where further technology validation can be pursued, supporting future scale-up and field implementation activities.”

“This achievement represents a significant milestone toward the real-world deployment of a promising new solution,” says Seiji Oguro, Executive Officer, Vice President, Sustainability Innovation Group, Mitsubishi Electric. “This success was made possible by our shared commitment with VTT to rapidly commercialize innovative technologies that can contribute to solving the climate crisis, and by the decisive pace that drove our collaboration. Moving forward, we will further strengthen our strategic partnership and welcome new collaboration partners to accelerate our commercialization initiatives. In doing so, we are committed to realizing “Trade-On (mutual benefit)” business to address societal challenges and drive sustainable business growth.”

DOC offers a complementary pathway toward carbon neutrality

DOC addresses an important need for negative emissions, particularly in sectors where residual emissions cannot be fully eliminated. If widely integrated with low-carbon electricity and coastal industrial infrastructure, DOC could become an important complementary solution alongside emissions reductions and other carbon removal approaches.

Leveraging the ocean’s role as the planet’s largest active carbon reservoir, DOC removes dissolved inorganic carbon from seawater, thereby promoting renewed uptake of atmospheric CO₂ by the ocean. According to various studies, DOC’s long-term carbon removal potential could reach several gigatonnes per year.

The project focuses an acidification-based approach in which seawater is temporarily acidified to release dissolved CO₂ in gaseous form for capture. Unlike the alkalinization route (base-DOC), which stores carbon as solid carbonates, this enables the recovered CO₂ to be directed either to permanent storage (CCS) or to industrial utilization as a feedstock (CCU).

DOC is designed for deployment at coastal industrial facilities, such as desalination plants and power plants, where seawater is already processed at large volumes. By utilizing existing intake, pre-treatment, and auxiliary systems, the approach offers opportunities to improve scalability and reduce infrastructure-related investment needs.

Creating new value chains and side-stream-based business opportunities

Beyond carbon removal, DOC may also create opportunities for new value chains through side-stream utilization. Captured CO₂ can be directed either to permanent storage or utilized in applications such as synthetic fuels, chemicals, and other industrial products, where it serves as a carbon feedstock.

In addition, the project has established a foundation for the selective recovery of valuable dissolved substances from seawater during the process. Utilizing such side streams could increase system flexibility and further strengthen the technology’s future commercial potential.