Novel, Efficient Contactor Technology to Substantially Lower the Cost of Direct Air Capture of CO2

Novel efforts to capture and remove CO2 from air, known as Direct Air Capture DAC, benefits society, the environment and generations to come. It helps reduce this major greenhouse gas, mitigate climate challenges facing us every day, diminish climate irregularities and creates innovative manufacturing to convert CO2 to variety of products: Fuels, cement, plastics, household goods and others. Ceramic honeycombs, known also as contactors, are used in removing CO2 from air by coating them with CO2 adsorbents. During this Phase I project, we designed and tested a novel honeycomb contactor smaller than the mainstream ones. It was rigorously tested both experimentally and in mathematical models. It was observed that our novel contactor captures and removes CO2 at a faster rate. Most importantly, it needs less sorbent, by about 40%. This is significant since, in many DAC systems, sorbent cost could be 80 – 85% of the ‘total’ capture cost. Given the cost reduction capability of our novel contactor, the total DAC cost could be reduced by about 30%. With CO2 capture not yet commercialized due to its high cost, this could be a game changer. For many DAC pilot plants planning to scale, this level of savings could be makeorbreak. Good agreement was also observed between our test data and mathmodeling results. Our concept has already been shared with several entities in the energy and capture field. The feedback has generally been positive and exciting, prompting us to move to Phase II 20212023 of this project. During Phase II, we plan to optimize our novel contactor for even a higher capture rate, and for more DAC cost savings. We will work closely with a national lab on its prototyping, testing and manufacturing. If successful, given it marked DAC cost saving capability, it is likely that our contactor will play a key role in enabling DAC commercialization.