Dr Vlatko Materic is the founder and CTO of Hot Lime Labs, a Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) company with a technology to supply hydroponic greenhouses with clean CO₂ recovered from biomass waste combustion of biochar making off-gases. Hot Lime Labs believes that the high economic value-add of clean CO₂ to the greenhouse industry combined with the carbon-negative potential of Biochar can generate a powerful carbon cascade i.e. an economically self-sustaining carbon sink capable of absorbing millions of tonnes of CO₂.

Vlatko is a Chem. Engineer by trade and had been researching CCS technologies for 10 years before realising the key issue was commercial!

This led him to find an early market niche for growing the technology - the vast global hydroponic greeenhouse industry, which routinely uses fossil based CO₂ to feed their plants and increase yields by 15-20%. With the match between market and technology found , Vlatko started Hot Lime Labs in 2017 to take the technology to Market. 5 years of intense growth later, with a successful pilot in hand, the company is completing the first commercial demonstration unit for Gourmet Mokai in Taupo, NZ, and is preparing for a technology rollout in NZ and the EU in 2023.      

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