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Turning Waste Heat Into a Competitive Edge: Carbon Capture for Data Centers

Author

Anas MAJDOULI

Product Market Specialist, Carbon Capture

The AI boom is forcing a reckoning: computing demand causes substantial amounts of CO₂ emissions and is outpacing the grid’s ability to deliver clean, reliable power. The EU alone expects to triple its data center processing capacity by 2035, and every gigawatt added intensifies scrutiny from regulators, investors, and communities near new builds. The EU’s Energy Efficiency Directive tries to balance data center growth with sustainability. It mandates that data centers with a total rated energy input exceeding 1MW capture and reuse their waste heat, unless the operator can show that doing so is not technically feasible.

 

With Atoco’s nano-engineered reticular materials, even ultra-low-grade waste heat from data centers can be leveraged to capture carbon dioxide either from ambient air (Direct Air Capture) or from the flue gas stream of on-site power generation (Post-Combustion Carbon Capture). This turns a regulatory obligation into an opportunity for lower CO₂ emissions, new revenue streams, and increased speed-to-power.

Meet the Energy Efficiency Directive’s Requirements with Atoco’s DAC Technology 

Removing CO₂ from ambient air comes with one major challenge: at roughly 0.04%, atmospheric concentrations are extremely low. Incumbent Direct Air Capture (DAC) systems must therefore move enormous volumes of air and expend significant energy just to isolate a small amount of carbon, which makes them economically unviable for a broader adoption. So why should data centers look to DAC to meet their obligations under the EU Energy Efficiency Directive? There are two main reasons.

 

First, air-cooled data centers offer ideal conditions for DAC. They continuously circulate massive volumes of air to keep servers within safe temperature ranges, and unlike outdoor environments, they operate under tightly controlled temperature and humidity. They also generate large amounts of low-grade waste heat, which brings us to the second point: with Atoco’s DAC technology, this abundant low-grade waste heat can be used to regenerate the carbon capture material, offsetting another major cost driver of incumbent DAC approaches.

 

How does that work? Drawing on decades of research by our Founder and Chief Science Officer, Nobel laureate Prof. Omar Yaghi, we nano-engineer reticular carbon capture materials with atomic precision. These materials are extremely porous, with an internal surface area of up to two soccer fields per gram. This matters because their pores can be nano-engineered to adsorb CO₂ molecules, and since the molecules are not absorbed but rather hover by the material’s surface, only a small amount of heat, such as the ultra-low-grade waste heat produced by a data center, is enough to regenerate it.

 

In essence, air-cooled data centers already provide ideal conditions for DAC: they move massive volumes of air and generate abundant low-grade waste heat. Atoco’s DAC technology puts that heat to work, capturing CO₂ from air to help data centers reduce emissions, comply with the EU Energy Efficiency Directive, and unlock a new revenue stream by selling the captured CO₂.

 

Find more about this solution on our white paper: Built-In Direct Air Capture: The Data Center Opportunity | Atoco

Illustration showing Atoco's Direct Air Capture (DAC) solution integrated with a data center. Ambient air is drawn into DAC units where CO₂ is captured, while clean air is released. Captured CO₂ is compressed for storage or utilization, and waste heat and power from the data center support the carbon capture process, creating a low-carbon infrastructure ecosystem.
Illustration of Atoco’s Direct Air Capture Solution for Data Centers.

PCC Powered by Low-Grade Waste Heat 

Due to the rising energy demand, access to power has become a strategic constraint for data centers. Offering dispatchable, high-availability power that pairs well with renewables and batteries, on-site natural gas fills the gap between long grid interconnection queues and an industry that needs access to power fast. Despite these advantages, on-site power generation with natural gas comes at a cost: once power is generated on site, its CO₂ becomes a direct, facility-level Scope 1 liability. This makes reconciling speed-to-power with sustainability commitments a challenge.

 

Post-combustion carbon capture (PCC) addresses this directly by capturing CO₂ from flue gas after combustion, targeting point-source emissions rather than pulling CO₂ from ambient air like Direct Air Capture does. The challenge has always been cost: flue gas from natural gas combustion contains only 3–5% CO₂, and separating carbon from such a dilute stream takes far more energy than from a concentrated one, making conventional solvent-based systems economically unviable for most operators.

 

Atoco’s PCC technology, built on Nobel Prize-winning science from our Founder and Chief Science Officer Prof. Omar Yaghi, tackles this with nano-engineered reticular materials: solid-state carbon capture materials with extremely high internal surface area and tunable pores that selectively adsorb CO₂ even at low concentrations. The material can regenerate at just ~40°C, so waste heat alone is enough, cutting energy use and cost considerably. They withstand thousands of adsorption/desorption cycles without degrading, and their modular design scales from pilot to hyperscale without changing the underlying technology. For data center operators caught between speed-to-power and decarbonization, that means not having to choose between the two.

 

Learn more: Carbon Capture for Power Generation: A Path to Sustainable Data Centers | Atoco

Illustration of Atoco’s post-combustion carbon capture solution for data centers, showing CO₂ capture from flue gas (exhaust of on-site power generation, sorbent regeneration, CO₂ compression, and storage or utilization pathways.
Illustration of Atoco’s Post-Combustion Carbon Capture Solution for Data Centers.

Turning Compliance into Advantage

As data center growth accelerates and the EU Energy Efficiency Directive raises the bar on waste heat capture and reuse, operators face a choice: treat carbon capture as another compliance cost, or as a source of competitive advantage. Whether the pathway is DAC or PCC, Atoco’s reticular materials turn the same low-grade waste heat every data center already produces into the energy source that makes carbon capture economical, transforming a regulatory requirement into lower emissions, a new revenue stream, and faster speed-to-power. In an industry where every gigawatt draws more scrutiny, that’s not just a compliance strategy; it’s a competitive one.

 

Get in touch with our team to learn more: https://atoco.com/contact-us/

 

 

Learn More about PCC in Data Centers