Fast-growing Delaware carbon capture firm has a new name: Ardent

Technical.ly’s 2023 Delaware Tech Company of the Year is having a big 2024 so far — and just made it bigger by shedding its lo.

As of today, after 30 years, the company has a new name and brand: Ardent Process Technologies, or just Ardent for short.

Over the last few years, the company has been changing from a small company that used federal grants for its R&D projects to a fast-growing commercial greentech entity committed to developing products that capture and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These changes prompted the company to change its identity to one that better represents its present.

“It’s been a culmination of a lot of different things,” Charlie Swartz, the company’s director of special projects, said about the changes. “Compact Membrane Systems doesn’t really reflect the product anymore like it did 30 years ago.”

The New Castle company’s current product lineup of commercial carbon capture systems is one such shift accelerating it into new territory.

New name, new location

The new name comes just in time for another big milestone: Ardent’s larger New Castle facility opening in late April. That $3.1 million expansion to more than 15,000 square feet of space that will accommodate 38 new full-time employees was supported by the Delaware Prosperity Partnership, which helped secure state grants for the project.

In 2023, the company raised a $16.5 million Series A and completed the Verbund X accelerator in Austria. During that program, Compact Membrane Systems connected with the Austrian petrochemical company OMV, which is now launching a carbon capture pilot rig of their Optiperm decarbonizing platform as it moves toward full commercialization.

“We’ve been delivering small commercial modules to test with a number of partners over the last two years,” Swartz said “We’re still pre-commercial for carbon capture, but we’re actively working with customers to become commercial.”

The technology being piloted by OMV uses carbon dioxide and nitrogen-separating membranes for cost-effective decarbonizing. If the decarbonization products don’t fall within certain cost parameters, Swartz said, companies will be unlikely to invest in them

“Many companies are investigating and trying to figure out what technology suits them best. There’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all solution,” Swartz said. “So there’s going to be a market for multiple carbon capture technologies.”

Ardent’s method takes flue gas that is emitted invisibly — as opposed to a smokestack and its visible smoke or steam — and concentrates the carbon dioxide into material that can be stored or purified and turned into products, cured into cement or even turned into sustainable jet fuel.

‘Scaling exponentially’

While VC funding is down overall as investors hold back in case of another recession, greentech, especially decarbonization tech, is still getting funding. That’s coming not just from investors, but also from federal and state entities investing in fighting climate change

So far, Delaware, with its incentive programs, has been supportive, reinforcing the decision to stay and grow in the state while looking ahead toward even more expansion in the future.

“We have the space and pilot machines that we need to build to grow into scaling exponentially,” Swartz said. “Support will be critical to our growth.”

Disclosure: This article mentions the Delaware Prosperity Partnership, a Technical.ly client. That relationship has no impact on this report.