# Cory Sanderson

> Cory Sanderson is the co-founder and CEO of Sustaera, a North Carolina direct-air-capture startup developing modular equipment that combines a structured solid sorbent with electric resistive heating. A University of Delaware chemical engineering graduate, he spent roughly 12 years at Air Products working across controls, air separation, hydrogen, carbon capture and adsorption before incubating Sustaera's technology at Susteon. His public case for carbon removal is less about miraculous chemistry than disciplined product design: put energy next to the sorbent, remove steam infrastructure, build for intermittent electricity and let specialized project developers operate the plants.

- **Role:** Co-Founder and CEO at Sustaera
- **Organizations:** Sustaera, Susteon Inc., Air Products and Chemicals, University of Delaware
- **Education:** Bachelor of Chemical Engineering, University of Delaware, Engineering Project Management Specialization, Coursera
- **Known for:** Named as an inventor on granted Air Products patents covering light noble-gas separation and lights removal from carbon dioxide., Named as an inventor on Sustaera patent filings for removing CO₂ with alkali-metal adsorbents., Led technology work at Sustaera from hands-on lab testing through intellectual property, personnel management and translation to commercial deployment.

## Career timeline

- **2007–2008** — Worked as a controls engineer at Air Products and Chemicals.
- **2008–2009** — Worked in air-separation process engineering at Air Products.
- **2009–2019** — Held plant, hydrogen and adsorption engineering roles at Air Products, including work on CO₂ capture and light noble-gas separation.
- **2019–2021** — Joined Susteon as a process technologist and incubated the direct-air-capture technology that became Sustaera.
- **2021** — Became a founding member and vice president of technology at Sustaera.
- **2022** — Served as principal investigator on a U.S. Department of Energy-backed bench-scale structured-sorbent DAC project; Sustaera also received a $1 million XPRIZE Carbon Removal Milestone Award.
- **2024** — Helped lead Sustaera's decision to replace its first-generation product with a nano-structured, electrically heated design.
- **2025–2026** — Represented Sustaera publicly as co-founder and technology leader, then became co-founder and CEO.

## Achievements

- Named as an inventor on granted Air Products patents covering light noble-gas separation and lights removal from carbon dioxide.
- Named as an inventor on Sustaera patent filings for removing CO₂ with alkali-metal adsorbents.
- Led technology work at Sustaera from hands-on lab testing through intellectual property, personnel management and translation to commercial deployment.
- Helped demonstrate Sustaera's solid-sorbent and integrated electric-resistive-heating DAC system at one-tonne-per-year scale over thousands of cycles.
- Served as principal investigator on a U.S. Department of Energy-supported bench-scale direct-air-capture project.
- Helped Sustaera secure early carbon-removal agreements with Stripe and Shopify; Shopify's announced purchase covered 5,000 tonnes.
- Helped lead the 2024 redesign of Sustaera's first-generation system toward its current nano-structured generation.

## Latest updates

- **2026-08** — Appeared on the Founder Shares podcast to discuss Sustaera's lower-energy, modular approach and the realities of financing climate hardware.
- **2026-06** — Discussed Sustaera's redesign, equipment-sales model, commercial relationships and family motivation in a Green Techpreneur interview.
- **2026-05** — Explained Sustaera's direct electric heating, sorbent economics, behind-the-meter power strategy and 2027 pilot plans in Sustainability in the Air.
- **2026-04** — Joined Reviewer 2 Does Geoengineering for a technical, long-form discussion of his career and Sustaera's cartridge-based DAC system.
- **2026-03** — Sustaera announced lab results of more than 90% heating efficiency for its electro-thermal approach; Sanderson was quoted as CTO in the announcement.

## Links

- Website: https://www.sustaera.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-sanderson
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/cesanderson

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/cory-sanderson
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-27