The sky now my canvas

Waiting at Heathrow for my flight to Stockholm, I wander into WH Smith before boarding. Near the Swedish travel guides, a Rolling Stone cover leaps out showing my late uncle Silber, with the title “Visionary. Madman. Martyr?”

I pick it up. Some reading and research might help fill in the questions that keep zipping around my head. I recalled meeting eccentric Uncle Silber just twice growing up thanks to Mum’s professional rivalry with her genius younger brother, who made billions revolutionizing atmospheric carbon extraction. The last we heard Silber had retreated into Arctic seclusion, far removed from family ties.

As the shop assistant rings up the purchase, memories flash back to the shocking email that started this odyssey – an invitation from the Bellander Foundation to Silber’s funeral in Stockholm and will reading in his spectacular Norwegian fjord retreat, Fenrir.

As the aircraft cruises over the North Sea bound for Stockholm, the story unfurling in my hands soon commands my full attention. It chronicles my estranged uncle’s dramatic rise from socially awkward outcast to the wealthiest and most influential Swedish scientist turned entrepreneur since Nobel himself.

I knew that Silber had made billions from an atmosphere-related startup while sequestering himself in Norway above the Arctic circle. But the scale of impact astonishes me still – his company Graphenzyme’s floating rigs and colossal factories apparently siphoning literal gigatons of carbon dioxide straight from thin air, transforming it into valuable graphene and reversing climate change in the process.

The sky’s no longer the limit

How one socially-awkward Swedish savant used his trillion dollar graphene startup to save the planet – and make history’s greatest fortune doing it.

By rewriting the rule book on how to cheaply extract CO2 from the air itself, eccentric billionaire inventor and atmospheric chemist Silber Bellander hit a major inflection point in humanity’s war with climate change. His Sweden-based startup Graphenzyme siphons a billion tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide straight from skies annually, converting it into valuable graphene nanomaterials using Bellander’s breakthrough bioreactor and electrochemical technologies.

If projections hold true, within two decades, Graphenzyme’s globe-spanning floating rigs and desert plants will physically extract more legacy emissions than humanity releases each year – reversing atmospheric CO2 buildup for the first time since the Industrial Revolution while creating vast fortunes in the process. It’s a radical about-face in fortune for our atmosphere, replete with shades of Silicon Valley vapidness and subversion. Graphenzyme may represent our best bet for averting further climate calamity as bellwether deadlines slip past ignored amidst a fractured global policy response falling dangerously short with COP35 failing again to secure agreement to phase out fossil fuels.

Sure bets haven’t always favored the now 72-year-old scientist and Sweden’s wealthiest citizen. For much of his early years, not even his teachers would have marked the awkward grade-schooler as destined for greatness. “I still recall teachers telling his parents Silber would likely not even attend high school let alone change the world given such defiant disinterest in classroom constraints,” chuckles Dr. Irena Cehlar, Bellander’s lifelong friend and founding Graphenzyme biologist. “Yet Silber simply saw and thought differently – he thrived when tackling hands-on problems, building contraptions rather than cramming concepts.”

Reclusive tinkerer finds his calling

Indeed Bellander discovered his calling not within school confines but rather rummaging through scrap heaps. Evidence of his brilliance already manifested itself during his early teens when he constructed the first battery-electric vehicle in his hometown of Gävle using salvaged parts and modified electric motors. Yet the prodigy remained withdrawn, finding social interactions unbearable and preferring to keep his company poring over old books on chemistry rather than spending times with his classmates.

Immediately after university research stints abroad, Bellander retreated to an isolated cabin deep in the forests of Arctic Sweden for over six years, insulating himself further from a society he neither understood nor sought affiliation with. The long polar nights filled instead with schematics and sketches – slowly nurturing visions of an improbable atmospheric manipulation endeavor.

Eccentric billionaire reemerges

When Bellander finally emerged from seclusion and debuted his improbable graphene-producing atmospheric reactors, he spoke in mumbling unintelligible streams of facts and figures. Yet the feats his prototype achieved required no translation – siphoning tons of CO2 straight from the air and converting it into valuable graphene nanomaterials.

Investors instantly grasped the immense implications along with Bellander’s brilliance. In the decade since, Graphenzyme’s incredible growth mirrors the singularity of its genius yet eccentric creator – with 40 megafactories now circling the globe, trillion dollar profits, and Bellander firmly cementing his legacy as both humanity’s richest as well as its most pivotal figure in combating climate change.

Yet with such notoriety comes both unprecedented power and problems. Regulators across several continents continue targeting Graphenzyme – questioning environmental alterations of untested scale as well as alleging anticompetitive business tactics as the juggernaut squeezes out rivals in graphene production and atmospheric engineering markets.

“Silber never cared one iota about money nor legacy, his mind eternally preoccupied on scientific puzzles rather than riches they may reap,” notes Graphenzyme co-founder Dr. Ludvig Erikssen, who has known Bellander for over 20 years. “But power is necessary to manifest his visions unfettered.”

And manifesting that power took its toll on Bellander personally as well as professionally. After Graphenzyme investor Gabrielle Ivanov publicly accused the billionaire scientist of coercive overtures along with unlawful firings, Bellander retreated ever further – designing lavish impenetrable subterranean Scandinavian bunkers alongside floating cities through which Graphenzyme aims to refreeze melting polar caps via sprayed seawater particles.

What’s a few degrees more when you’re already hot?

While Silber Bellander radically transformed our atmosphere to avert climate catastrophe, his socialite wife Sashona wasd hellbent on single-handedly accelerating it with her fabulous yet gas-guzzling jet-set lifestyle fueled by hubby’s trillion dollar graphene fortune.

I infiltrated her intimate Mars-themed bacchanal at their Malibu compound, complete with acrobat trapeze artists twirling amidst astronauts floating about magenta neon martian regolith in simulated 0.3G gravity. Over Dom Perignon and invasive Pacific sea star eggs procured solely for the soiree, her Hollywood guests whisper about the custom subterranean cryogenic spa chamber costing $43 million where Sashona purportedly spends $150,000 monthly bathing herself in imported French mule milk infused with ADHD medication and oud wood incense.

This conspicuous consumption appears insufficient affront to Silber’s ecological ethos. Sashona’s latest indulgence threatens more waste – a custom Central Park replica for her pedigree terriers, costing forests and fossil fuels transporting granite outcroppings and dinosaurs for authenticity’s sake. Just one of her 12 villas globally all with full-time staff including personal pool attendants awaiting her infrequent visits.

While Silber’s wizardry may redeem humanity, his unchecked spouse seems on a solitary mission to bankrupt global beluga caviar and orchid supplies in pursuing ever-more-dizzying decadence. Yet perhaps in sober moments, Silber surveys the lavish world Sashona irreparably remakes through his wealth, secretly pining for his lost atmospheric ideals now steamrolled by his partner’s privileged planet plundering.

Bellander goes out on top

Undeterred by both critics and nearly daily protests outside now heavily fortified Graphenzyme global headquarters, Bellander plowed forward unrelentingly till the very end – locked incessantly in unmanned labs fine-tuning designs seeking unprecedented environmental and economic impact on par with his vast ambitions.

And it is perhaps sadly yet fittingly in one such laboratory that Silber Bellander’s brilliant albeit intensely singular spark of genius was extinguished. Just this spring, Graphenzyme’s mercurial leader was discovered motionless on the floor after failing to virtually attend the company’s annual shareholder gala. Preliminarily investigations ruled an accidental fentanyl overdose by authorities, swirling rumors suggest otherwise despite lack of evidence suggesting any crime.

Upon hearing rumors of her closest ally’s shocking demise, a tearful Ivanov confessed how Bellander’s single-minded descent into power left countless discarded lives in its wake with profound questions now unanswerable on whether the ends ever justify such means. Yet when pressed further, Ivanov acknowledged no force on earth may have sufficed to sway Graphenzyme’s intractable visionary from his uncompromising course once set upon it – a rationality so obviously clear to Bellander yet painfully obtuse to nearly all those around him.

And so the bells of Uppsala Cathedral now toll 72 times in Silber Bellander’s honor – the lonesome Swedish eccentric who grasped our precarious atmosphere and engineered means to forever alter its composition for the sake of salvaging our civilization beneath it. As Graphenzyme megalaboratories persist in their tireless atmospheric conversions, Bellander lies at rest – no longer burdened by humanity nor this world so plainly yet incongruently perceived through the lens of his truly exceptional mind. The possibilities and fortunes the skies offer now shine brighter thanks to one brilliant if not misunderstood visionary who made them his business to change.

*

I put the magazine down and consider my place in all of this. My mother – Silber’s sister Gunilla who settled in Britain after marrying my English father – seldom discussed her younger brother given the gulf between his glittering celebrity in later years and their humble childhood in working class Gävle. I gather from the article some of that lingers – his magnetic yet eccentric genius also clearly incubating inner demons and dark complicating forces along the meteoric rise.

As we begin the descent to Stockholm, I ponder the uncle I barely knew, who evidently grasped chemistry far beyond what any peer could yet painfully perplexed by human emotional complexities. I shall soon witness firsthand the aftermath left in the wake of this misunderstood genius.

We arrive to searing spotlights and frenetic press outside Stockholm Cathedral. Inside, Swedish royalty mingles with politicians and celebrities as soaring harmonies sing my uncle to rest, their celestial notes echoing under the great solemn dome like laments of ancient Norse gods. I pay respects beside the coffin draped in the Swedish flag and Graphenzyme logo, his windswept leonine features now frozen in noble repose. What sparks fired such extraordinary imagination behind that furrowed brow? What does an unfettered mind see gazing upon our human world that the rest of us cannot envision?

A stern blonde assistant escorts me promptly from the state funeral to a sleek Tesla VTOL jet and within an hour we land vertically outside an incredible cliffside lodge with soaring glass walls overlooking and fjord in northern Norway.

“Mr. Bellander’s primary residence,” the assistant clipped in refined British tones. “Please make yourself comfortable – the reading of the will shall commence at 1800 hours this evening.”

I enter hesitantly through the grand foyer, unsure what secrets of my uncle’s interior world this modern Valhalla may reveal, perhaps keys that unlock the mental machinery powering his world-changing visions.

The vast library catches my curiosity first. A colossal carved oak desk sits surrounded by eclectic scientific volumes and models – from nanoscale molecular diagrams to football-sized engraved depictions of enzyme function. One shelf houses a row of prestigious awards including the Nobel Prize in Chemistry from a decade prior.

I pick up a thick leather notebook titled “The Graphenzyme Whitepaper” with my uncle’s emblem embossed in gold leaf. Flipping through the dense schematics and economic analyses, I gather this manifesto served as the genesis for his atmosphere-altering enterprise as it evolved from back-of-the-napkin scribbling into a globe-bestriding colossus rewriting Earth’s very carbon cycle. Equations dance with vivid line sketches of soaring reactors. Harvesting free carbon from air and spinning it into wealth. Mad genius yes but method quite plainly anchors such marvellous visions my uncle manifested from thin atmosphere.

The whitepaper that started it all

Catalytic conversion of atmospheric CO2 into graphene: technology roadmapping whitepaper

Explanation of using engineered enzymes and electrochemical cells to convert atmospheric CO2 into graphene:

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Engineered Enzymes for Graphene Production

• Enzyme Design Methodology
  • Computational protein engineering
  • Directed evolution
• Catalytic Mechanism
  • CO2 binding site
  • Transition state stabilization
  • Carbon-carbon coupling
• Enzyme Immobilization Techniques
  • Electrode surface functionalization
  • Crosslinking polymers
  • Site-specific binding

3. Electrochemical Graphene Production

• Advanced Carbon Capture Materials
• Electricity Delivery Infrastructure
• Cell Design
  • Electrode materials & architecture
  • Gas flow configuration
• Reaction Mechanisms
  • CO2 activation
  • Nucleation
  • Graphene lattice propagation
• Process Intensification Methods
  • Nanostructuring
  • Additives & promoters
  • System integration & automation

4. Technoeconomic Analysis

• Cost Modeling
  • CAPEX
  • OPEX
• Scaling Methods
  • Numbering-up
  • Solid-state devices

5. Life Cycle Assessment

• Net Carbon Accounting
• Renewable Electricity Use
• Sustainability Metrics

1. Introduction

Atmospheric CO2 levels continue rising exponentially, driving climate change. Transforming this greenhouse gas into valuable products can potentially help mitigate this. One approach is using the carbon in CO2 to produce graphene. Graphene is a versatile nanomaterial with electronic, mechanical, and thermal properties applicable in devices, composites, sensors, and more. But current production techniques like chemical vapor deposition (CVD) are expensive and energy intensive.

This whitepaper explores two methods – using engineered enzymes and electrochemical cells – that can enable affordable, scalable graphene production while capturing atmospheric CO2.

2. Engineered Enzymes for Graphene Production

Enzymes are nature’s catalysts – highly selective, efficient, and sustainable. By redesigning their structures, novel enzymes can be created to bind and reduce CO2 specifically into graphene.

Enzyme Design Methodology

Computational protein engineering algorithms can rapidly predict mutations to improve CO2-reducing activity. Key residue positions near enzyme active sites are explored, assessing site reactivity and transition state binding affinity. Combinations of mutations are simulated and ranked based on graphene yield projections.

In tandem with computational efforts, directed evolution techniques can explore non-intuitive mutations in the lab. High-throughput screens using cell assays, microfluidics, and biosensors enable rapid analysis of >108 enzyme variants created by error-prone PCR or gene shuffling. Variants exhibiting increased graphene precipitate are isolated via selection pressures.

Multiple rounds of directed evolution lead to engineered enzymes orders of magnitude more efficient at reducing CO2 into graphene compared to natural forms.

Catalytic Mechanism

The optimized enzymes contain a (Ni/Co) metal center in their active site, stabilizing key catalytic intermediates. Atmospheric CO2 first binds to the metal, with the carbon atom undergoing nucleophilic attack and cleaving into (CO+O). Electrons from the electrode surface sequentially reduce the CO, forming a surface-bound carbon radical. Adjacent carbon radicals couple, extending the graphene lattice.

Enzyme Immobilization Techniques

For integration into scalable devices, the engineered enzymes are immobilized onto electrode surfaces using robust crosslinking chemistries. The electrodes provide electronic wiring as well as surface area for graphene sheet propagation.

Self-assembled monolayers help orient the enzymes for optimal electron transfer and CO2 access to active sites. Stable amide or Schiff base bonding covalently attach enzymes to polymer scaffolds like chitosan. Large electrode surface areas accommodate high enzyme loadings up to 1012 enzymes/cm2.

3. Electrochemical Graphene Production

Electrochemical flow cells provide the necessary electrons and nucleation sites for graphene formation at scale using just air as the CO2 feedstock.

This analysis on achieving 10x better CO2 capture capacity and selectivity combined with low cost renewable electricity for economic feasibility would fit best in Section 3 of the whitepaper covering the Electrochemical Process Design. Here is an expert level detail addition:

3. Electrochemical Process Design

Advanced Carbon Capture Materials

To achieve direct air capture economics, advanced sorbent materials are synthesized for concentrated CO2 delivery to the electrochemical cells. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are optimized using high-throughput computational screening, identifying porous particle architectures with surface areas exceeding 5,000 m2/g. Gas-phase infiltration synthesis techniques then construct these topological MOF structures.

Introducing amine-functionalization and rapid thermal processing creates defect sites that preferentially adsorb CO2 with capacity exceeding 1 mol CO2 per mol of MOF. This 10x improvement over existing solid sorbents is stabilized via covalent anchoring.

By tuning the MOF’s affinities across operating temperatures using this defect engineering approach, >99% selective CO2 capture from ambient air is demonstrated. Additionally, rational interference of neighboring pore spaces hampers nitrogen absorption, further boosting selectivity.

Electricity Delivery Infrastructure

Low-cost, renewable electricity is supplied to the electrochemical reactors using high voltage transmission direct from dedicated solar/wind farms. Solid state step-down transformers feed the delivered power through interleaved buck converters. This enables precise potential control across thousands of reactors in parallel.

Demand response algorithms modulate renewable power delivery across the reactors, optimizing for intervals of highest irradiation. Smart grid synchronization further minimizes electricity costs to around $0.05/kWh – half the current rates.

Overall, the coordinated material and electrical infrastructure innovations enable the scalable, affordable atmospheric CO2 conversion critical for commercial viability.

Cell Design

The cells utilize graphene foam electrodes with hierarchical pores that balance surface area and mass transport. Nickel/copper nanoparticles coat the highly conductive graphene electrode architecture.

A channeled flow cell geometry ensures uniform CO2 diffusion to the enzyme-coated cathode surface. Meanwhile, renewable electricity powers the electrochemical reactions for sustainable synthesis.

Enzyme Catalytic Mechanism

The activated enzyme (E*) contains a nickel tetracarbonyl complex at its core following exposure to gaseous CO2 and an applied potential. This enables the following catalytic cycle:

E* + CO2 → [E-CO2] (1)
[E-CO2] → [E-CO] + O (2)
[E-CO] + e- → [E-C•] (3)
2[E-C•] → E* + C2 (graphene) (4)

Key intermediate states arise, with CO2 binding and cleaving into CO and O (eq 1-2), then stepwise reduction of CO via electron transfer and radical formation (eq 3). Two carbon radical species then couple, propagating the graphene lattice (eq 4).

Reaction Mechanism

The applied potential energizes CO2 upon contact with the catalytic cathode, weakening its bonds. The activated CO­2 strips into (CO + O), with the oxygen evolving as H2O/OH- and electrons reducing CO further into carbanions. Neighboring carbanions couple on the conductive electrode, propagating the graphene lattice outward.

Electrochemical Process

Half Reactions:

Cathode (CO2 → C2 graphene):
CO2 + 2e− + 2H+ → CO + H2O E° = -0.53 V (5)
CO + 2e− + H+ → C• + H2O E° = -0.52 V (6)
2C• → C2 (7)

Anode (H2O → O2):
2H2O → O2 + 4e− + 4H+ E° = +1.23 V (8)

Overall:
CO2 + 2H2O + energy → C2 + 2O2 ΔG = -257 kJ/mol (9)

Process Intensification Methods

Graphene yields can be enhanced by incorporating additives like borate buffers to raise local pH levels near cathodes, accelerating CO2 activation. The reactors also integrate membrane degassers and ultrasonication to prevent nanobubble accumulation and disrupt unwanted side reactions.

Numbering-up cells in stacks combined with process automation increases productivity. Overall, optimized electrochemical cells can support extremely high graphene volumetric production rates upwards of 20 g/(L·day).

4. Technoeconomic Analysis

Rigorous process simulations using Aspen Plus estimate CAPEX around $12 million for a commercial scale 10,000 tonne/yr facility given optimistic assumptions about reaction efficiency improvements. OPEX is dominated by renewable electricity and membrane costs currently, projected at ~$800/tonne. Higher efficiencies, cell stability, and economies of scale can reduce OPEX to as low as $250/tonne.

Financial Estimates

With assumed graphene selling price around $100/kg, total revenue for 10,000 annual tonnes output is $1 billion. Operating costs consisting of renewable electricity, membranes, enzymes, and system maintenance totals around $250 million. This provides an annual EBITDA of $750 million.

Assuming a 20 year plant life, %20 discount rate, 40% annual depreciation rate on $300 million CAPEX, the NPV equals $980 million. An IRR of 25% and 2.5 year payback period make this system economically compelling.

Enzyme Production Costs

Genetically engineered E. coli strains produce the enzymes at scale. Improvements in plasmid copy numbers, promoters, secretion pathways, and bioreactor optimization enable 120 g/L yields in 300,000 L reactors. With a 2 week fermentation, annual production totals over 140 tonnes enzyme.

CAPEX for a dedicated enzyme production plant is $15 million. Media, oxygen, nutrients costs $5/kg enzyme. Other fixed and labor expenses bring total OPEX to $12 million/year. This translates to $90/kg for the isolated engineered enzyme.

5. Life Cycle Assessment

Preliminary LCA indicates net carbon sequestration exceeds 5 tonnes CO2 per tonne graphene. Use of 80% renewable energy in the process prevents substantial greenhouse gas emissions. Investing in additional renewable energy would further improve sustainability.

6. Conclusion

Engineered enzymatic and electrochemical systems show promise for direct air capture and conversion of CO2 into valuable graphene at gigatonne scales. Further R&D scaling up lab prototypes combined with policy incentives can enable rapid commercialization and deployment for this carbon transformation approach to benefit both the environment and economy.

*

I put the document down and look around. Head hurting from the concepts my uncle had outlined so eloquently. Above the fireplace in the huge central reception room hung a large framed photo with Silber awkwardly clutching his Nobel medal beside a grinning bearded man I recognise as the King of Sweden from the funeral. The misfit boy who the article described nearly dropping out of school, now the planet’s scientific saviour. My uncle’s trajectory still mystifies… I yearn to understand what extraordinary mentality powered his meteoric rise.

I wander halls adorned with pieces from his mammoth art collection – from Matisse and Miró to a whole wing of Scandinavian impressionists with piles of abstract Arctic landscapes that must have fueled Silber’s dreams in his remote northern redoubt. I can hear, or feel hidden mechanisms whir and shift in tune with my movement through the house.

By the panoramic fjordside lounge, I notice an odd contraption of metal rods encircling a high-backed leather chair. Approaching it cautiously, the odd apparatus suddenly emits a hum as the rods light up, bathing the seat in a gentle azure glow. My body acts on its own at this point – some inexplicable magnetism draws me into the mysterious chair. I feel gelid metal brackets extend automatically around my skull as I recline immersed fully now in the shimmering blue aura, like sinking into a magical Arctic sea at once terrifying yet profoundly peaceful…both cold shock and profound warmth wash over me, my breathing slows…eyelids grow so very heavy. I blink once more seeing stars dance as the glowing chair whispers promises I shall soonawaken with power to grasp worlds unseen.

Gentle hands shake me awake. The assistant stands over me looking concerned – I had dozed off while waiting for the will reading she explains. I glance around confused. I am slumped awkwardly in a normal lounge chair lacking any odd contraptions or shimmering blue light effects.

“My apologies, Mr. Siljan – air travel can be quite draining,” she says politely handing me a silver pill to refresh me for the imminent legal proceedings. “Right this way to the study, the executor awaits us there.”

I drink some water swallowing the rush of focus, still struggling to separate visions dreamed from reality just witnessed. But now fully alert, we indeed make our way to an imposing study where my uncle’s team of attorneys beams in virtually on a towering screen ready to bestow me whatever mysterious inheritance Silber Bellander deemed his estranged sister’s British son worthy of…

The lead barrister addresses me formally: “On behalf of your late uncle, Mr. Siljan Bellander, who entrusted us with executing his last will and testament, we hereby bequeath exclusively to you the full contents of his mountain archive vaults, containing personal notes and plans for advanced atmospheric innovations beyond presently deployed Graphenzyme technologies.”

At first confused why minor memorabilia warrants such secure seclusion…scanning the study, realization suddenly crystallizes – this cliffside citadel itself and all surroundings must comprise those secret vaults! The promised trove of plans not merely collecting dust but rather still dynamically surrounding me – embedded unseen in these very walls and lands that sprouted my uncle’s dreams then fiercely protected their cultivation from outside meddling.

“We also leave you this key,” continues the attorney, a shining platinum fob materialising from a hidden compartment in the desk before me. “It shall unlock pathways to understanding your visionary uncle in ways impossible for most yet perhaps more accessible to kin sharing traces of Silber’s uncommon intellect.”

I roll the mysteriously engraved key between my fingers as the attorneys conclude, mesmerised by cryptic symbols covering the cobalt fob metal, cerebral wheels spinning what this skeleton key forged of platinum computational code may reveal. I almost don’t notice the room emptying already, stainless servant drones clearing cups and dissolving the window screen back to faint fjord northern lights as night embraces.

Alone at last amidst ticking grandfather clocks, I consider contacting Mum but propriety keeps my cursor hovering over her avatar. Time enough later for attempting explanations once I myself understand what is going on.

My new bedroom view soars over glinting archipelago waters under shredding auroras. I reopen the whitepaper, tracing equations loosely grasping at their meaning. Do my family ties give me the ability to understand Silber’s quicksilver mind? Will this key guide me to some technological marvel he tucked into a cliffside vault? Waiting for only heir capable of wielding their world-tilting power. His final challenge from beyond…to prove myself truly worthy. To sit in a seat at the table steering our civilisation’s fate. I shook my head, I was getting tired and slightly hysterical.

I drift into dreams sailing airborne over luminous forests and purple mountains, key in hand launching me upwards through sun-pierced clouds towards an awaiting gleaming sky citadel where Uncle Silber smiles down benevolently beckoning me inhabit horizons only we few dreamers divine…