Work

Techno-Economic Analysis of Hybrid Adsorption–Membrane Separation Processes for Direct Air Capture

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Direct air capture (DAC) has recently gained interest as a carbon dioxide removal (CDR) method to reduce atmospheric CO2. DAC is mainly studied through standalone separation technologies, especially adsorption and absorption. Hybrid DAC, combining separation technologies, is rarely investigated and is the main topic of this work. This study investigates hybrid DAC using adsorption for pre-concentration up to a few percent or tens of percent depending on the case studied and membrane separation to concentrate the CO2 stream to high purity (>90%). Adsorption regeneration by temperature swing adsorption (TSA) and vacuum thermal swing adsorption (VTSA) are compared, and VTSA regeneration achieved higher pre-concentration outlet CO2 purity (15–30%) than TSA regeneration (1–10%). Membrane separation is studied depending on inlet CO2 purity and outlet-required purity (90 or 95%), which influence the energy requirement and cost of capture. For all cases studied, the cost of capture remained high (>1700 €/tCO2) with a high energy requirement (>2 MWhe/tCO2 and >27 GJ/tCO2). The adsorption pre-concentration step accounted for the majority (>80%) of the energy requirement and cost of capture, and future work should be focused on preferentially improving adsorption step performance.

Source: ChemEngineering

DOI: 10.3390/chemengineering9050102

Authors: Paul de Joannis, Christophe Castel, Mohamed Kanniche, Eric Favre, Olivier Authier

Institutions: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire Réactions et Génie des Procédés, Électricité de France (France), Université de Lorraine

Language: English

Topic: Carbon Dioxide Capture Technologies

Subfield: Mechanical Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Climate action, Affordable and clean energy, Responsible consumption and production

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,930