Inertial: Tackling Carbon Emissions through Supersonic Innovation

Inertial is a participant in cohort 2 of Resurgence, a cleantech accelerator led by the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in partnership with the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.

When Alec Houpt, a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, finished his research on experimental methods for plasma-based supersonic flow control and plasma-assisted combustion for scramjet applications in hypersonics in 2020, he followed that technology to a startup.

He spent four years working at that company, but felt the pull to do something bigger. “I wanted to work on something with greater purpose,” said Houpt.

This urge led Houpt to leave the company and launch his own startup – Inertial – in 2023. With the hope of making a positive impact on the environment, Houpt’s goal with Inertial was to commercialize an emerging carbon capture concept.

“The rate at which renewables are being built is not keeping up with the increased demand for energy from sources such as AI data centers, more EVs plugging into the grid, and increased demand for air conditioning due to global warming,” said Houpt. “If we can’t rely on renewables to keep up with this increasing demand for energy, how can we rely on it to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the power sector?”

Inertial’s mission is to tackle carbon emissions at their source — the exhaust of fossil-fueled power plants. Houpt recognized a major flaw in traditional carbon capture technologies: they rely on absorption/adsorption-based technologies that struggle with high heat and moisture levels and often require toxic materials.

In contrast, Inertial’s approach uses supersonic inertial separation to freeze carbon dioxide and water out of exhaust gases. By embedding this separation process into turbomachinery, Inertial’s technology is capable of handling the vast quantities of exhaust produced by power plants while also capturing significant amounts of water.

“Inertial is a carbon capture company that also is helping with water access,” said Houpt. “We sit at a unique nexus of simultaneously addressing problems within the energy, carbon capture, and water markets.”

As far as Houpt is aware, no other company is developing a technology like Inertial’s.

“This approach seems to be the only option to economically prevent greenhouse gas emissions at the scales needed to reach net zero,” he said.

His background in aerospace engineering gives Inertial a unique perspective rarely seen in the carbon capture space. Houpt has also enlisted the help of experts from the University of Notre Dame and the Notre Dame Turbomachinery Laboratory to advance the technology.

Though still in its early stages, Inertial has received promising feedback. Power plants are interested in installing the technology because it would mean a large power customer operating on site, which fits well into their financial projections and reduces their risk of changing market demand.

Inertial’s impact on the environment has also been noted.

“Realists are intrigued in Inertial’s approach because they agree that renewables aren’t enough to reach net zero by 2050,” said Houpt.

In the coming year, Houpt plans to take Inertial to the next level, with goals to advance its technology readiness level, move full-time operations to Chicago to take full advantage of the Resurgence program and to tie into the hard tech/climate tech scenes, apply for grants, secure pre-seed funding, and bring on a cofounder and one or two engineers.

// Resurgence provides full-spectrum support for its cleantech startups focused on four specific areas of the cleantech industry: energy storage and infrastructure, next-generation nuclear solutions, hydrogen and alternative fuels, and materials refinement and process intensification.