Direct air capture

The policies and technologies required to limit anthropogenic global warming and its impact on humans and the environment increasingly define the spirit of our time. Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases will alone not be sufficient to stay within the carbon budget defined to keep warming below 2°C above pre-industrial levels. To achieve this goal, negative emissions technologies such as direct air capture (DAC) coupled with long-term storage of CO₂ will therefore be necessary. The novelty of this technology means cost and energy demands a still too high to enable large-scale deployment.
The objective of the group is to develop and validate new engineering solutions targeted at adsorption-based, low regeneration temperature CO₂ air capture processes, with the aim of reducing the barriers to adoption of the technology in a future sustainable energy system. The scope of research activities ranges from modeling, simulation and optimization of contactor geometries to the chemical synthesis and characterization of promising candidate sorbents.