Greener fertilisers for sustainable food production
Swedish startup NitroCapt has developed the unique SUNIFIX® solution to reduce the environmental impact of the nitrogen fertiliser industry. The company won The Food Planet Prize in 2025 thanks to the solution’s unique potential, now they are looking to scale up production, as founder and CEO, Gustaf Forsberg explains.
The Haber-Bosch process is used for nitrogen fixation to produce synthetic nitrogen fertilisers which according to research is the origin of ~48 percent of the world’s food production. The team at the start-up NitroCapt, first funded in 2022, have now developed a novel, more environmentallyfriendly solution, using NitroCapt’s unique plasma process to create the same reactions as in lightning. “When there is lightning in the air, oxygen and nitrogen will combine and ultimately form nitrates. The earlier Birkeland-Eyde process was based on the discovery that NOx generated from artificial lightning, electrical discharges in the air, could be used to produce nitrate fertilisers,” explains Forsberg. The SUNIFIX® solution developed by NitroCapt is based on essentially the same pathway, but uses a high pressure microwave plasma rather than electrical discharges. “In this way, we split nitrogen and oxygen molecules into atoms, to form NO very effectively,” says Forsberg. “We then cool it
LIFE SUNIFIX
Sustainable Nitrogen Fixation pilot plant for green fertilizer production
NitroCapt has been co-funded by EU LIFE. Key investors are LRF VC, ALMI Invest Greentech, InnoEnergy, Novax VC. NitroCapt received the €2m Food Planet Prize in 2025. NitroCapt AB Almas Allé 3B, 756 51 Uppsala, SWEDEN E: gustaf.forsberg@nitrocapt.com https://nitrocapt.com/life-sunifix/
Gustaf Forsberg, Founder and CEO - Physician and agronomist, PhD. Previously key person in the development of the ThermoSeed(R), the most important innovation from The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
Björn Lindh , first investor and Strategy Director - Co-founder of 7 companies including Graphmatech, Airis Garden and Agteria. Business Angel with green technology focus.
extremely quickly again, conserving the NO formed in the plasma. When oxidised a second time into NO2 , it mixes with water to form HNO3 which can then be used to produce different kinds of nitrate fertilisers.”
LIFE SUNIFIX
This solution holds rich promise as a means of supporting food production while at the same time reducing the agricultural sector’s carbon
a small-scale, commercial production facility with a capacity of 600 kW has been designed, for a first full commercialisation, while Forsberg and his colleagues are also looking further ahead. “We will then look to scale up to larger, ‘region-size’ facilities and we have already letters of intent from customers inside and outside Europe for 33 such larger production units, with a future commercial value for NitroCapt of more than 1.1 bn EUR,” he continues. “We will start in Europe, as nitrates are already widely used here while they are less common elsewhere. However, our long-term ambition is to help decarbonise agriculture, and so we have strong ambitions to expand more globally in future.”
“With the SUNIFIX® solution we split nitrogen and oxygen molecules into atoms under a very high pressure, which makes the process extremely productive and efficient.”
footprint, and an industrial pilot plant has been developed to demonstrate its wider potential in the EU-backed LIFE SUNIFIX® project. As part of their work in the project, the team at NitroCapt are validating the pilot plant, which has been up and running since February, and the fertiliser produced has been tested in field trials showing very high performance.
“We are making a common nitrate calcium nitrate fertiliser, so the end-product is not new – only the green and and energy-efficient process,” outlines Forsberg. As a next step,
The company has attracted a lot of support and recognition as it pursues this ambition, recently winning the 2025 Food Planet Prize, worth $2 million, while it is currently in the final for the International Fertilizer Association’s Cultivate Challenge Award. This reflects both the wider importance attached to mitigating the environmental impact of the production and use of nitrogen fertilisers, which accounts for around 2.7 percent of the global fossil-based greenhouse gas emissions, and the potential of the SUNIFIX® solution in this respect.
“The SUNIFIX® solution is a cost-effective alternative to fossil fuel-based methods of producing nitrogen fertiliser. It can play a critically important role in climate mitigation, and we have the skills and expertise to make it happen,” stresses Forsberg.