In Kanpur, a microalgae-powered revolution is reimagining the future of carbon capture.
In the global race to decarbonize industry, carbon capture is often framed as an unavoidable compliance expense — a cost companies must bear to meet regulation or sustainability targets. But Nitin Srivastava, founder of Greengine, has spent the past eight years proving a more compelling possibility: what if carbon capture could pay for itself?
Founded in 2017, Greengine uses engineered microalgae bioreactors to capture CO₂ from industrial flue gas or directly from ambient air, converting it into usable biomass. It is an unusually elegant solution rooted in a familiar principle: photosynthesis. But scaled, engineered, and optimised, that simple biological process becomes a climate tool with industrial muscle.
“Microalgae not only capture CO₂ through photosynthesis, they also have the potential to produce a wide variety of products such as energy, materials, nutraceuticals, animal feed, and cosmetics,” Srivastava explains. This duality — capture plus value creation — anchors Greengine’s model.
A Bioreactor That Thinks Like an Engineer
At the heart of Greengine’s system is a high-efficiency, modular bioreactor designed to function across vastly different industrial settings — from mid-sized factories to large refineries. The microalgae convert inorganic CO₂ into organic algal biomass which can then be stored or channelled into multiple use cases, creating what Srivastava describes as “a circular, revenue-generating model for our clients.”
This engineering-first approach is shaped by the founder’s IIT Kanpur roots and the company’s collaborations with institutions such as Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) and Engineers India Limited (EIL). These pilots, Srivastava says, have helped the team understand real industrial constraints and build systems that are “scalable, robust, and able to create massive impact.”
Greengine focuses on two pathways:
- Industrial Carbon Capture, where CO₂ from point-source emissions is captured at high concentrations
- Direct Air Capture, where CO₂ is drawn directly from ambient air at low concentrations
Both use the same core bioreactor technology, adapted through Greengine’s modular architecture.
Kanpur: The Unlikely Catalyst
Greengine’s location is not incidental. Kanpur is Srivastava’s birthplace—one of India’s oldest and most densely industrial cities, with a manufacturing ecosystem that provides both the problem statement and the proving ground.
“Being one of the oldest industrial cities with a strong manufacturing ecosystem, and with prestigious research institutions such as IIT Kanpur, the city has supported our early R&D, innovation to full-scale deployment story,” he notes. Kanpur’s proximity to heavy industry has also helped Greengine build a multidisciplinary team and iterate rapidly on real-world installations.
The Bioeconomy Beyond Carbon Capture
What differentiates Greengine is what happens after capture. The algal biomass becomes a feedstock for a broader portfolio of products: bioenergy, biomaterials, animal feed, nutraceuticals, and cosmetic-grade inputs. Several high-value products are already in the pipeline.
In other words, Greengine isn’t just a climate company — it is a building block in India’s emerging circular bio-economy.
The Targets: Urgent, Audacious, Non-Negotiable
Greengine’s ambition is unapologetically large:
- Capture 1 million tonnes of CO₂ by 2027–28
- Reach 1 billion tonnes over the long term
It is an ambition aligned with global climate math; India’s industrial emissions demand solutions that are cost-effective, scalable, and rooted in science that works today — not in hypothetical technologies of tomorrow.
Editor’s Note:
Greengine and founder Nitin Srivastava pitched at the ASCEND initiative at Sankalp Bharat, recognised for their engineering-led approach to carbon capture and contribution to India’s emerging bio-economy.
