Equatic

8.1.2023

White Paper – Equatic’s Measurement, Reporting, and Verification Methodology

1.5.2023

ACS ES&T Engineering – Electrolytic seawater mineralization and how it ensures (net) carbon dioxide removal

1.12.2021

ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. – Saline Water-Based Mineralization Pathway for Gigatonne-Scale CO2 Management

Articles & Reports

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6.18.2024

Announcement – Equatic to Build North America’s First Commercial-Scale Ocean-Based Carbon Removal Facility

5.22.2024

Statement – ISO 14064-2:2019 MRV Methodology

5.15.2024

Press Release – Equatic Expands Distinguished Advisory Board to Lead the Company to Gigaton-Scale Carbon Removal

5.8.2024

Mini-Documentary – How Equatic is Turbocharging the Ocean’s Natural Processes to Store CO2

2.27.2024

Press Release – Equatic Unveils Plans for the World’s Largest Ocean-Based Carbon Removal Plant

CDR Plants

10.24.2023

Press Release – Equatic Awarded TIME “Best Invention of 2023”

Announcement

8.15.2023

MRV Methodology – Statement on High-Quality Carbon Removal Credits

5.31.2023

Press Release – Equatic Launches Low-Cost, Gigaton-Scale Technology to Decarbonize at Unprecedented Speed

News

4.12.2023

Forbes Article – An L.A. Startup Aims To Turn The Oceans Into A CO2 Sponge And ‘Green’ Hydrogen Machine

1.12.2021

Press Release – Could the ocean hold the key to reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?

Research

2.10.2022

Press Release – UCLA Engineering receives $21 million pledge from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Technology, Financing

10.6.2022

Press Release – UCLA Institute for Carbon Management to Unveil Seawater-based Carbon Removal Pilot Systems in Los Angeles and Singapore

Technology

Meet the team

Gaurav N. Sant

Founder

Gaurav founded Equatic Inc. and leads it with the executive team. He is the Pritzker Professor of Sustainability in UCLA's Samueli School of Engineering, where he is also the Founder and Director of UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management. Gaurav’s research has led to the creation of multiple decarbonization-related spinout companies including CarbonBuilt Inc., Concrete-AI Inc., Specifx Lithium Inc., x/44 Inc., and Nextli Technologies Inc.

Lorenzo Corsini

Principal Advisor

Lorenzo is an entrepreneur and scientist. He helps Equatic scale, responsibly. Bridging from the world of pharma, Lorenzo ensures Equatic’s technology will do no harm to the marine environment, for example by applying approaches and methods for de-risking that are long established to develop pharmaceuticals for human use. Lorenzo co-founded and built PhagoMed, a biotech startup developing precision antibacterial drugs, which was exited to BioNTech in 2021. Prior to that, he spent nine years at BCG in roles of increasing seniority. He has degrees in biochemistry and business administration and a Ph.D. in molecular biology.

Todd Kirschner

Chief Financial Officer

Todd is an operating executive and an investor. He co-founded two investing firms in San Francisco after working at Audax Group, where he focused on biotechnology VC and middle market buy-outs. Before transitioning into finance, Mr. Kirschner served as a biopharmaceutical R&D engineer for Eli Lilly and Merck where he specialized in the scale-up of biological and chemical manufacturing processes. Todd is trained as a biochemical engineer and has an MBA.

Edward Sanders

Chief Operating Officer

Edward was on the executive team at one of the world’s fastest growing airlines. He executed the launch and scale-up of commercial and network operations across Asia Pacific. Prior to joining Equatic, he was a senior leader at BCG. Edward received an MBA from Stanford University and an economics degree from Melbourne University.

Erika La Plante

Head of MRV & Environmental Impact Assessment, Co-Founder

Erika is an Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Davis. She has a B.S. in Geology and a Ph.D. in Geochemistry (University of Illinois at Chicago), and previously held positions at UCLA and the University of Texas at Arlington. Erika applies her expertise in mineral dissolution and precipitation to discover new cements, extract critical metals, and sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Dante Simonetti

Head of Technology, Co-Founder

Dante Simonetti is an Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Undergraduate Education in UCLA Samueli’s Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department. He is also the Associate Director for Technology Translation in the Institute for Carbon Management at UCLA. Dante received B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, respectively. He joined UCLA in 2014 after working as an R&D Project Leader at Honeywell’s UOP.

Thomas Traynor

Head of Engineering

Tom is an Applied Chemist. As the Translation Leader at UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management, Tom was responsible for the translation of new technology from bench- to commercial-scale. Previously Tom worked on process development at Honeywell in roles of increasing seniority. Tom has a degree in Chemistry from Illinois Wesleyan University.

Xin Chen

Senior Scientist, Co-Founder

Xin Chen is an electrochemist with expertise in electrochemical reactions, materials, and devices. Prior to Equatic, Xin worked at UCLA as a postdoctoral scholar and then as a research engineer developing advanced electrochemical processes with applications in carbon management, nuclear energy, and biomedical systems. Xin holds a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in materials science and engineering.

David Jassby

Head of Electrode Materials and Systems, Co-Founder

David Jassby is a Professor in UCLA Samueli's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UCLA. His research is focused on membrane separations, water treatment, and resource recovery. He holds multiple patents on membrane material and process development, and has published more than 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters.

Advisory Board

Edward Muller

Chairman, Equatic

Edward R. Muller is the Chairman of the Advisory Board of the UCLA Institute for Carbon Management and of six start-ups deploying technologies developed within the Institute. Mr. Muller has previously served as CEO of three electric generation companies (Genon, Mirant and Edison Mission Energy) and as Vice Chairman of NRG.

Mr. Muller is the Chairman of CarbonBuilt, Concrete AI, Equatic, Nextli Technologies, Specifx and x/44. He is also a director of AeroVironment. In addition, he previously was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Riverview School and of the U.S.-Philippines Business Committee and Co-Chairman of the International Energy Development Council. Mr. Muller is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy.

Lord John Browne

Chair, Advisory Board

Lord John Browne serves as the Chairman of BeyondNetZero and Managing Director at General Atlantic, providing strategic support and advice to the firm’s investment teams and portfolio companies. In both roles, he advises the firm on ESG considerations, with a particular focus on climate solutions and the path to Net Zero emissions.

Lord Browne served as Group Chief Executive of international energy company BP from 1995 to 2007, after having joined the company in 1966 as a university apprentice. He led the company through a period of significant growth and transformation, including BP’s merger with Amoco in 1998. His landmark speech at Stanford University in 1997 established BP as a global leader in the way it thought about and sought to address climate change. In 2007, Lord Browne joined Riverstone, where he was co-head of the world’s largest renewable energy private equity fund until 2015. He is also a former Chairman of Wintershall Dea, Europe’s largest independent oil and gas company. Lord Browne is Co-Chair of the Prime Minister’s Council on Science and Technology. From 2010 to 2015, he was the UK Government’s Lead Non-Executive Board Member. In addition to his Chairmanship of Equatic's Advisory Board, Lord Browne is the Chairman of the Francis Crick Institute, Chairman of the Courtauld Institute of Art, Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow and Past President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Peter Relan

Member, Advisory Board

Peter Relan is the founder and mentor at YouWeb. After completing his graduate work from Stanford in 1992, Peter has spent the last 30 years as a serial founder himself in different fields of technology. His current focus is AI and the climate crisis.

Peter started his career working as a research engineer with one of the co-founders of TCP/IP and co-authored a seminal paper on Network Management published in ACM Sigcomm in 1988. Peter next worked at Hewlett-Packard on HP Openview, now a multi-billion dollar enterprise at HPE. In 1994, Peter was recruited by Oracle to their Media Server division, Larry Ellision's pet project, and helped pivot the division to internet based video streaming servers, before leaving Oracle to be the founding CTO of Webvan. In September 2001 Peter teamed up with his ex-Oracle colleagues to co-found a company focused on online fraud in banking based on a unique stream querying technology. The company was acquired in 2006 by Entrust. He created YouWeb Incubator to provide small select groups of promising entrepreneurs with long-term mentorship and funding. Over the years, Peter has kept a finger on the pulse of society and helped build technologies that will create the most impact and benefit for all people. His methodology has been extremely successful, helping found and scale up huge companies in social & mobile gaming, IoT, and software.

Caitlyn Fox

Member, Advisory Board

Caitlyn Fox is a social and climate leader with over 15 years of experience including roles at Redstone Strategy Group, REDF, and The Rockefeller Foundation. In Fox's role at CZI, she was responsible for building-out CZI's climate program with a focus on scaling carbon removal technologies.

Jérôme Schmitt

Member, Advisory Board

Jérôme Schmitt has over 30 years of global experience in finance, sustainable and energy innovation. He held the positions of SVP of Mergers & Acquisitions, SVP of Carbon Neutral Businesses, and SVP of Sustainable Development & Environment during his tenure at TotalEnergies.

Craig Cogut

Member, Advisory Board

Craig Cogut founded Pegasus, a private equity fund manager which over time has focused on planet health and human health. It has become the first U.S. private equity fund manager to be accredited by the Green Climate Fund. Prior to Pegasus, Cogut was a founder and an original partner at Apollo Advisors L.P.

Catherine McKenna

Member, Advisory Board

Catherine McKenna is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Climate and Nature Solutions. She is Canada's former Minister of Environment and Climate Change as well as Minister of Infrastructure. She is Chair of the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Expert Group on Net-Zero Commitments of Non-State Entities which released its Integrity Matters report at COP’27 in Egypt in 2022 setting out criteria for net zero commitments of business, financial institutions, cities, and regions.

Catherine founded Women Leading on Climate and is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Columbia Climate School and a Visiting Professor in Practice at the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics. She is an advisor to the Climate Data Steering Committee for the Macron/Bloomberg Net Zero Data Public Utility, Singapore's International Advisory Panel for Carbon Credits, the Taskforce on Net Zero Policy, the LSE Just Transition Finance Lab, as well as the University of Ottawa's Information Integrity Lab.