While our products help millions of people work smarter every day, our philanthropic mission helps ensure that future generations inherit a smarter, cleaner planet. For the past several years, we have been proud to support climate change solutions by funding research into nascent carbon capture research. And now, it’s that time of year again: we’ve begun accepting applications for Boomerang’s 2025 carbon capture research funding.
Carbon Capture Researchers: Apply Now
Climate change remains one of the most significant challenges facing humanity. When we were considering how to make an impact tackling this problem, we considered our roots as a startup. Given the historical rates of greenhouse gas emissions, carbon capture will be critical to mitigating global warming. Although there are large institutions working on some of the more developed technologies in this area, there remain promising opportunities still in the early stages of technological development. That’s where we’re focusing our investment: research labs working on early-stage carbon capture research that aren’t yet ready for more established funders.
We’re now accepting applications from underfunded, US-based academic labs or research organizations focused on carbon capture technology to receive up to $50,000 in funding.
How to Submit Your Proposal
If you are a researcher or a student developing new carbon capture technology and in search of some funding, we invite you to submit your application:
Please include:
- Name, Organization, and Contact info
- A one-page proposal attachment describing your proposed or current project details and how you would use the funding
- Confirmation that your organization is 501c3 eligible and you will be able to provide a tax-deductible receipt
The deadline to apply is Friday, November 14, 2025.
If you have any questions, please contact boomerang+carbon@baydin.com.
Carbon capture research projects we’ve funded in previous years
- The first year, we donated to an academic lab in Colorado State working on genetically engineered thin film microalgae for carbon capture.
- In year two, the recipient was part of Project Carbon at UC Davis, working on soil amendment for better carbon sequestration while providing better crop yield.
- We chose micro-algae-driven carbon capture research led by Dr. Yantao Li at the University of Maryland for Boomerang’s 2021 Climate Donation. You can read more about Dr. Yantao Li’s work here.
- In 2022, we donated to two projects:
- Professor Maria Maldonado of the University of California Davis on her research into the respiratory proteins of giant kelp to develop respiration-based strategies to enhance net carbon capture
- Professor John Coates’ lab at the University of California Berkeley. His proposal involves working on making bioplastics cheaper to manufacture by adapting a species of bacteria to convert methane into bioplastic polymers using perchlorate respiration instead of oxygen respiration. Our team got a detailed look at his research in 2023, and the potential blew us away.
- We also donated to two projects in 2023:
- Prof. Scott Warren at UNC Chapel Hill’s Department of Chemistry, who is developing membranes for capturing CO2 directly from combustion sources using a material discovered by his research team. This research could potentially lead to a 10-50 fold improvement in membrane performance with reduced energy consumption.
- Dr. Kyriakos C. Stylianou at Oregon State University, leading a project on bioinspired materials for oceanic carbon capture. The project involves synthesizing metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which, when exposed to UV light, selectively capture oceanic inorganic carbon and convert it into value-added products such as methanol.
- Last year, Professor Yang Shao-Horn of MIT was the recipient of Boomerang’s carbon capture research funding. Her proposal offered a promising path to reduce steelmaking-related CO₂ emissions by developing catalysts that directly and efficiently convert flue gas into methanol, advancing both green fuel production and industrial decarbonization.