A review on progress made in direct air capture of CO2

As the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere continues to rise, and the reality of global warming challenges hits the world, global research societies are developing innovative technologies to address climate change challenges brought about by high atmospheric concentration of CO2. One of such challenges is the direct removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. Among all the currently available CO2 removal technologies, direct air capture (DAC) is positioned to deliver the needed CO2 removal from the atmosphere because it is independent of CO2 emission origin, and the capture machine can be stationed anywhere. Research efforts in the last two decades, however, have identified the system overall energy requirements as the bottleneck to the realization of DAC's commercialization. As a result, global research community continues to seek better ways to minimize the required energy per ton of CO2 removed via DAC. In this work, the literature was comprehensively reviewed to assess the progress made in DAC, its associated technologies, and the advances made in the state-of-the-art. Thus, it is proposed to use traditional heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system (mainly the air conditioning system), as a preexisting technology, to capture CO2 directly from the atmosphere, such that the energy needed to capture is provided by the HVAC system of choice.

Automated summary

As carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere rise, research societies are developing innovative technologies to address climate change challenges caused by high CO2 levels. Direct air capture (DAC) is a promising solution for CO2 removal, as it is independent of emission origin and can be implemented anywhere. However, the energy requirements for DAC have hindered its commercialization. This study proposes using preexisting heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems to provide the energy needed for CO2 capture.