Air Company Cover Photo

Air Company

New York, NY, United States

About Us


Air Company is a technology company in New York City. We’re inventing the future, one product at a time.

We believe in solving problems—the harder the better. We know that the best solutions aren’t always the most obvious, but smart executions of the right science can literally change the world. So, we tackled the planet’s most vexing problem and turned a negative to a positive: we invented a way to take excess carbon from the air and turn it into ultra-refined alcohol. Our company uses modern technology to create the world’s most carbon-negative products, disrupting every category we enter, starting with spirits.

TECH INFORMATION

Air Company's patented technology transforms carbon dioxide captured from the air into impurity-free ethyl alcohol that can be used in spirits, fragrances, cleaning, and a variety of consumer industries. In the long-term, it can even be used as a renewable and carbon-neutral fuel. Our technology uses only air, water, and sunlight as inputs. This is done by capturing carbon dioxide from the air using solid sorbent air capture technology and generating electricity from sunlight using solar panels, which also power our patent-pending electrochemical reactor. This system breaks apart the captured carbon dioxide, along with water, over our proprietary catalysts and reforms them to produce alcohol with pure oxygen as the only byproduct. This process has net negative carbon emissions, removing a half of a kilogram of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per kilogram of alcohol produced in a complete lifecycle analysis.

ABOUT TEAM LEADER

Dr. Stafford (Staff) Sheehan oversees production of Air Company’s products as Chief Technology Officer and developed the technology that converts carbon dioxide into alcohols. Staff is a scientist and entrepreneur who has developed several commercial technologies based on his applied research in the fields of chemistry, physics, and computer science, and has built collaborations with several world-renowned universities and institutes through his research. He completed his PhD at Yale University in 2015 as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and was awarded Yale’s Wolfgang Prize for the top doctoral dissertation in chemistry. He has authored over 35 scientific publications and patents and is internationally recognized for his research on artificial photosynthesis and carbon dioxide conversion, landing him a spot in Forbes’ 30 under 30 list in the Energy sector in 2016, as well as several other accolades including being named one of Chemical & Engineering News’ Talented 12 in 2017, the BASF-Volkswagen Global Award for Applied Research, and the United Nations Ideas for Change Award.

TEAM MEMBERS

Dr. Stafford Sheehan, Co-Founder & CTO
Gregory Constantine, Co-Founder & CEO
Dr. Chi Chen, Head Scientist
Dr. Aimee Zeller, Product Scientist
Jemilla Michael, Marketing Director