SBIR Phase I: CAS: A Novel Approach for Achieving Scale in Direct Air Carbon Capture

The broader/commercial impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is in potentially contributing to the creation of a viable gigaton-scale Direct Air CO2 (carbon dioxide) Capture (DAC) technology. The technology could be a key pillar in preventing the worst effects of climate change. For over a century, humanity has emitted billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year.

As more CO2 has accumulated in the atmosphere trapping the sun’s rays, Earth’s temperature has continued to rise. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, gigaton-scale DAC stands to support the creation of a trillion-dollar industry in the United States and underpin the development of 3 million jobs.

This project is based on a novel DAC design addressing two key hurdles to achieving the scale needed to effectively offset CO2-caused climate change: cost to build infrastructure and energy to run processes. The system injects carbon capture fluid with a monoethanolamine (MEA) spray and removes that spray with an exhaust particle separating centrifuge.

Through this hollow design, it not only saves on building costs, but may be poised to save on ongoing energy costs. Energy cost in a carbon capture contactor is a function of pressure drop or drag. The company's hypothesis is that a centrifuge is significantly more aerodynamic than the honeycomb-like filling currently used in contactors.

The energy savings can translate into a system with significantly lower pressure drop and, therefore, lower ongoing energy costs to run. The program is organized into research objectives that investigate each area of technical risk. The first objective is calculating the optimal fluid particle size for capturing carbon dioxide from the air and optimizing the MEA operating range within the proposed system through Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and lab testing.

The second objective is determining the relationship between the fan and centrifuge through physical prototyping. The third objective is designing the facility shape itself though a mix of CFD and physical prototyping.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.