CO2 Capture Technologies and Adsorbent Materials

Carbon dioxide capture encompasses a suite of technologies designed to separate CO2 from gaseous streams, including post-combustion flue gas, pre-combustion syngas and ambient air. Physically based approaches rely on physisorption within porous solids such as zeolites, activated carbons and metal-organic frameworks, while chemisorption exploits chemical affinity, most often via amine-functionalised materials. Regeneration of the adsorbent is achieved through pressure or temperature swing processes, permitting repeated cycles of uptake and release. Key performance metrics include adsorption capacity, selectivity for CO2 over competing species (notably water vapour and nitrogen) and energy requirement for regeneration. Recent advances in material design have focused on tailoring pore geometry, surface chemistry and polymer grafting to enhance stability under realistic conditions and to reduce thermal penalties. These innovations underpin applications in point-source capture from power stations and cement plants, as well as negative-emission strategies based on direct air capture. The integration of optimised adsorbents with modular process units offers a pathway to scalable, low-emission solutions that can be deployed globally to mitigate climate change.

Research from Nature Portfolio

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CO2 Capture Technologies and Adsorbent Materials publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in co2 capture technologies and adsorbent materials across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Adsorption: accumulation of gas molecules on the surface of a solid material due to physical or chemical interactions.

Sorbent: a solid material engineered to capture and hold CO2 from a gas stream.

Temperature swing adsorption (TSA): regeneration technique in which temperature is raised to desorb previously adsorbed CO2.

Direct air capture (DAC): process that extracts CO2 directly from ambient air, enabling negative-emission strategies.

Amine functionalisation: chemical modification of a material’s surface with amine groups to enhance CO2 affinity and uptake capacity.

References

1. Sorption direct air capture with CO2 utilization. Progress in Energy and Combustion Science (2023).
2. Techno-economic assessment of CO2 direct air capture plants. Journal of Cleaner Production (2019).
3. A roadmap for achieving scalable, safe, and low-cost direct air carbon capture and storage. Energy & Environmental Science (2023).
4. Considering technology characteristics to project future costs of direct air capture. Joule (2024).