I’ll be presenting at the International Conference on Negative CO2 Emissions event on Ca(OH)2-based Direct Air Capture (DAC) systems.
My work looks at one of the main challenges of DAC: how to design air contactors capable of processing very large volumes of air while maintaining low energy consumption and low capital costs. While much attention is often placed on sorbent development, our research suggests that reactor design and gas–solid contacting can be equally important for the overall performance of DAC systems.
At CSIC, we are developing DAC concepts based on the carbonation of porous Ca(OH)2 structures under ambient conditions. These structures carbonate over periods of days or weeks and are operated using a patented counter-current gas–solid contacting concept. This approach can significantly improve CO2 capture efficiency compared with conventional batch operation, while keeping the air contactor design simple, modular and potentially low-cost.
We have recently demonstrated proof-of-concept at laboratory scale for both structured air channels and packed-bed configurations, and current work is focused on optimizing porous shaped Ca(OH)2 forms and validating reactor models for future scale-up.
I’d be really interested to hear how others are approaching the challenge of scaling DAC air contactors while maintaining low CAPEX and high capture efficiency ahead of the event.
Looking forward to meeting and exchanging ideas with many of you in Milan.