Techno-economic assessment of atmospheric CO2 capture plants

Abstract

Climate change is attracting more and more attention. Despite already taken actions towards its mitigation, concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere is continuing to grow. Emerging innovative technologies, like capturing CO2 from the ambient air, in other words, direct air capture (DAC) can help mankind to fight this crucial problem and keep global temperature rise well below 2 °C compared to preindustrial levels. DAC finally makes it possible to close the carbon cycle by capturing and further converting CO2 from the atmosphere into synthetic fuels that can replace conventional liquid fuels widely used nowadays in the transportation sector. Currently, there are a few commissioned DAC pilot plants in the world. The purpose of this research is to gather available information about technologies capturing CO2 from the atmosphere and precisely DAC plants, perform in-depth analysis of energy requirements and associated capital and operational expenses and deliver a detailed overview of up-to-date available technological solutions. The conducted research proves that it is technically possible and economically feasible to build DAC plants nowadays. Additionally, the scientific contribution of the research consists in holistic descriptions of key technical and estimated economic parameters of two final DAC plants’ models that one can use for further investigation or as input for synthetic fuels production systems.