Innovative direct air capture and utilisation system for the production of renewable fuel

Direct air capture (DAC), which involves atmospheric CO2 removal, must be implemented alongside other decarbonisation technologies to achieve global climate change mitigation objectives. However, like carbon capture and storage, the potential for geological CO2 storage presents an economic liability which will limit the use of the technology. In addition, DAC also have significant physical footprint and huge energy requirement with a cost of capture of about €111-925/tCO2. In this project, a new direct air capture System using a novel amine solvent blend and air contactor unit system which has the potential to significantly reduce the physical footprint, cost and energy requirement of the DAC system will be designed, optimised and analysed. The developed system will be integrated to a CO2-to-fuel system, through modelling and simulation, and used to perform techno-economic analysis of the system. This project is aligned to our ongoing EU Research & Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) project with partners in China. Therefore, the PhD student will benefit from up to 3 months annual all-expensive paid exchange visits to the project partners in China.

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