Carbon One

About Carbon One

C1 Green Chemicals AG, operating as Carbon One, is a Berlin-based cleantech company founded in early 2022 by serial entrepreneur Christian Vollmann and chemist Dr. Marek Chęciński. The company is focused on decarbonizing hard-to-abate industries like shipping, aviation, and chemicals by reinventing the production of green methanol.

The company's core technology is a disruptive homogeneous catalysis process for methanol synthesis, an invention of Dr. Chęciński that originated from quantum-chemical simulations in 2018. This new method marks a significant departure from the century-old, energy-intensive heterogeneous catalysis traditionally used in methanol production. C1's process operates at significantly lower pressures and temperatures, cutting them in half compared to conventional methods. This results in a more efficient, selective, and scalable process that dramatically reduces energy consumption and production costs. The technology achieves a high single-pass CO conversion of 95% with 95% selectivity, demonstrating an efficiency about five times higher than traditional methods.

C1's business model centers on developing and commercializing its proprietary catalysis technology. The company aims to lower the "green premium" on non-fossil methanol, making it a price-competitive alternative to fossil-based methanol. By enabling decentralized, smaller-scale production, the technology can be deployed wherever CO2 waste streams and renewable energy are available. The company is targeting a market for green methanol that is projected to reach approximately €183 billion annually by 2050. C1 plans to build the world's first demonstration plant for its technology.

Dr. Marek Chęciński, the CTO, is the inventor of the C1 technology and has a background in chemistry and catalysis research, founding CreativeQuantum GmbH, a leading service provider in quantum mechanical simulations. CEO Christian Vollmann is a passionate entrepreneur who has successfully built and exited several companies. The leadership team also includes Dr. Mathias Mostertz as COO, who brings two decades of experience in the engineering and cleantech sectors. Since its founding, C1 has raised a total of $21.4M in funding over four rounds, with investors including Planet A Ventures, Maersk Growth, and denkapparat. The company has established a pilot plant, "Leuna100," in Leuna, Germany, a location with historical significance as the site of the first commercial methanol plant in 1923.