Direct air capture: process technology, techno-economic and socio-political challenges
Climate change mitigation scenarios that meet the Paris Agreement's objective of limiting global warming usually assume an important role for carbon dioxide removal and negative emissions technologies. Direct air capture (DAC) is a carbon dioxide removal technology which separates CO 2 directly...
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| Published in | Energy & environmental science Vol. 15; no. 4; pp. 136 - 145 |
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| Main Authors | , , , , , |
| Format | Journal Article |
| Language | English |
| Published |
Cambridge
Royal Society of Chemistry
13.04.2022
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| Subjects | |
| Online Access | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Climate change mitigation scenarios that meet the Paris Agreement's objective of limiting global warming usually assume an important role for carbon dioxide removal and negative emissions technologies. Direct air capture (DAC) is a carbon dioxide removal technology which separates CO
2
directly from the air using an engineered system. DAC can therefore be used alongside other negative emissions technologies, in principle, to mitigate CO
2
emissions from a wide variety of sources, including those that are mobile and dispersed. The ultimate fate of the CO
2
, whether it is stored, reused, or utilised, along with choices related to the energy and materials inputs for a DAC process, dictates whether or not the overall process results in negative emissions. In recent years, DAC has undergone significant technical development, with commercial entities now operating in the market and prospects for significant upscale. Here we review the state-of-the-art to provide clear research challenges across the process technology, techno-economic and socio-political domains.
This comprehensive review appraises the state-of-the-art in direct air capture materials, processes, economics, sustainability, and policy, to inform, challenge and inspire a broad audience of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. |
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| Bibliography: | María Erans obtained a PhD degree in Energy & Power from Cranfield University in 2017. She is currently a Marie Sk odowska-Curie COFUND postdoctoral fellow at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. Her research mainly focuses on the development and testing of solid adsorbents/sorbents for CO emissions trends at Nottingham University, served as a Research Fellow in the Department of Politics at Warwick University and taught international theory and quantitative methods at Aston University. capture, as well as materials characterization from the molecular to device scale. 2 capture and solar energy storage. He has received several recognitions for his research work, including the Nicklin Medal (Institution of Chemical Engineers, IChemE) and the EFCE Excellence Award in Fluid Separations (European Federation of Chemical Engineering, EFCE). Greg A. Mutch holds a Master of Chemistry (MChem) and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Aberdeen. He is currently a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow at Newcastle University, and co-investigator in a ∼£9M Programme Grant on high-selectivity membrane separations from the UK's Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council. He sits on the Steering Group of the BEIS CCUS Early Career Professional's Forum and is an Academic Member of UKCCSRC. His research interests are in sorbents and membranes for chemical separation processes, particularly CO David M. Reiner, PhD is Associate Professor of Technology Policy at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. He is also Assistant Director of the Energy Policy Research Group at Cambridge University, Deputy Director (Systems & Policy) of the UK CCS Research Centre and serves on the CCUS Council, which is chaired by the UK Energy Minister. He currently is co-I on several UK and European grants on carbon capture and greenhouse gas removal. His research focuses on energy and climate change policy, economics, regulation, and public attitudes, with a focus on social license to operate. capture processes and microwave technologies. Her research activity is highly inter-disciplinary lying between the areas of chemistry and engineering. Dawid P. Hanak holds a Master of Science (MSc) in Carbon Capture and Transport, an Executive Master in Business Administration (MBA) and a PhD in Energy from Cranfield University. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in Energy and Process Engineering at Cranfield University. He leads a research group in process engineering for sustainable development that aims to develop breakthrough process designs for direct air capture, carbon capture, hydrogen production, and high-value chemicals and fuels synthesis. He has extensive expertise in process design and development, third-party validation, techno-economic feasibility assessment, environmental impact assessment, and business model development. Zeynep Clulow is a Research Associate at the Energy Policy Research Group at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. Her current research interests are public attitudes towards energy technologies and the political economy of negative emission technologies, particularly across the global North and South. Prior to joining Cambridge, she completed an Economic and Social Research Council-funded PhD that investigated the role of instrumentalist factors and worldviews in shaping CO capture, particularly materials for calcium looping, chemical looping combustion and direct air capture. She has also focused on the scalability of fluidised-bed reactors for CO Eloy S. Sanz-Pérez obtained his MS and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from Rey Juan Carlos University (Spain). He has been visiting researcher and post-doc at the University of Nottingham (UK) and the Georgia Institute of Technology (US). Dr Sanz-Pérez is currently Associate Professor at Rey Juan Carlos University and his research interests include CO |
| ISSN: | 1754-5692 1754-5706 |
| DOI: | 10.1039/d1ee03523a |