This seminar is presented in english.

The Direct Air Capture Utilization and Storage (DAC-US) is a complementary technology to point-source CCUS and vital to meet CO₂ mitigation targets of 1.5°C scenario. DAC-US captures CO₂ from ambient air and subsequently converts or stores it. DAC is potentially a scalable negative CO₂ emissions technology. Extensive deployment of DAC can mitigate distributed emissions such as transport and aviation. Beyond negative emissions, DAC units can be placed ubiquitously to capture and utilize CO₂ for a wide variety of applications. Installing DAC at the sequestration hub's vicinity can reduce transport and storage costs by eliminating expensive pipelines.

Expanding DAC deployment on a large scale unlocks the significant potential to convert CO₂ to high-value products while reducing CO₂ emission levels. Some of the CO₂ utilization pathways that have been integrated to point-source CO₂ capture can be integrated downstream of the DAC unit. Successful examples of such integrations are converting CO₂ to methanol and acetic acid or fixing CO₂ in building block materials. Methanation is another alternative that can be integrated downstream of the DAC unit to produce renewable natural gas, which is considered a promising pathway for renewable energy source storage and supply. Most DAC technologies are modular, extending the prospect of more rapid scaling by numbering them up. The regeneration can be done at low temperatures (significantly below 100°C), enabling the use of industrial waste heat. These advantages of DAC technologies become a strong promoter for the commercial deployment of these systems.

Amine-based sorbents are the state-of-the-art (SOTA) materials for a large-scale DAC application. These sorbents are known for their high selectivity to adsorb CO₂ from the air. However, the primary bottleneck for large scale deployment of direct air capture (DAC) of CO₂ remains in electrical and heat energy consumption. The key to lowering the DAC cost rests on two factors: 1) the energy required for releasing CO₂ from the capture agents and 2) the pressure drop needed to move the air through the capture unit. Major technology providers such as Global Thermostat, Climeworks, and Svante have developed and deployed novel pathways to reduce the CO₂ capture cost by lowering the regeneration energy.

Susteon, as a leader in developing the new generation of DAC technology, discovered and demonstrated a pathway to lower the cost of the capture. Increasing CO₂ adsorption and desorption rates, reducing sorbent regeneration temperature, and energy consumption are the direct results of Susteon’s R&D plan. This technology's successful deployment will open a promising pathway toward<$100 per ton CO₂ target capture cost.

During this presentation, Dr. Gupta will review the DAC technology’s commercialization pathway and share his vision about this technology's future developments.

Biography

Dr. Raghubir Gupta, PhD. is Co-founder and President of Susteon Inc. – a technology startup with a mission of developing and deploying low-carbon energy technologies to achieve Net Zero emissions. Previously, Dr. Gupta served as the Senior Vice President of the Energy Technology Division at RTI International, where he led a large R&D team to develop technologies in syngas, hydrogen, CO2 capture, methane, and biomass conversion. Dr. Gupta obtained his B. Tech. degree in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India. He received his Ph.D. degree (also in Chemical Engineering) from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago.

Dr. Gupta’s technical expertise ranges from coal/biomass gasification, biomass conversion, synthesis gas (syngas) production, cleanup and utilization, methane storage and conversion, modular process systems, hydrogen production, carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration. He led the development of several DOE-funded technologies from lab to pilot to commercial scale, including a $180 million project for demonstration of RTI’s syngas cleanup technology at Tampa Electric, where a 50 MW scale commercial demonstration plant was designed, built, and operated to capture 1,000 ton/day of CO₂.

Dr. Gupta has presented his research work in a number of national and international conferences, published in a number of reputed journals (including a paper in “Science”), and holds more than 20 U.S. and foreign patents. He was a visiting researcher at the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy at Columbia University in New York. Currently, he is an Adjunct Professor in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at the North Carolina State University. Dr. Gupta was a committee member of the National Academy of Sciences and recently wrote a comprehensive report on Research Needs in Gaseous Carbon Waste Streams Utilization.