Direct air capture: process technology, techno-economic and socio-political challenges

María Erans, Eloy S. Sanz-Pérez, Dawid P. Hanak, Zeynep Clulow, David M. Reiner, Greg A. Mutch

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

63 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

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 CO2 directly from the air using an engineered system. DAC can therefore be used alongside other negative emissions technologies, in principle, to mitigate CO2 emissions from a wide variety of sources, including those that are mobile and dispersed. The ultimate fate of the CO2, 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.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1360-1405
Number of pages46
JournalEnergy and Environmental Science
Volume15
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 28 Feb 2022
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie-Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 754382, GOT ENERGY TALENT. ESP is grateful for funding from the Young Researchers R&D Project Ref. M-2177-DESMAT financed by the Community of Madrid and the Rey Juan Carlos University. ZC and DMR are grateful for support from the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) via grant EP/P026214/1 and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) via grant NE/P019900/1. GAM was supported by the Royal Academy of Engineering under the Research Fellowship scheme. GAM is also grateful for support from the EPSRC via grant EP/V047078/1 (SynHiSel) and the UK Catalysis Hub funded by EPSRC grant reference EP/R027129/1 (Hub ‘Science’ 3: Catalysis for the Circular Economy and Sustainable Manufacturing). I. Metcalfe, W. Hu and I. Ahmed of Newcastle University are thanked for helpful comments during the preparation of the manuscript.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

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