AtmosZero, a startup co-founded by MIT alumnus Addison Stark, is tackling one of the hardest-to-decarbonize parts of manufacturing: steam production, tells MIT News. Industrial boilers that burn gas, oil, or coal to make steam power sectors from chemicals to paper, and their emissions add up. Globally, more than 2.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide are produced each year from converting water into steam, making steam generation a major contributor to industrial energy use and emissions.
Rather than redesigning factories, AtmosZero has developed a modular electrified heat pump that generates industrial-grade steam using electricity and ambient heat. The system can deliver steam at temperatures up to 150°C, enough to meet most industrial needs, while using roughly half the electricity of traditional electric boilers. That efficiency comes from an advanced compressor design that upgrades heat from air rather than directly generating heat with resistance elements.
The company’s technology is designed to drop into existing boiler rooms without major retrofits or downtime. It installs quickly and works with current steam systems, lowering barriers for manufacturers to decarbonize without halting operations. A pilot 650 kW system is already running at a customer facility near AtmosZero’s Colorado base, and the company plans to scale deployment across plants that use under 10 megawatts of thermal energy.
Stark, who holds advanced degrees from MIT and has worked with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, says the technology aims not just at a single demonstration but at mass manufacturing. In his view, meaningful decarbonization requires standard, scalable products, not bespoke engineering projects.
By replacing fossil-fueled boilers with electrified alternatives that cut both cost and emissions, AtmosZero hopes to reshape industrial heat and help reduce one of the biggest sources of carbon emissions in manufacturing.