The collaboration will modify or design new materials, called chemical sorbents, which will be able to be produced at low costs, provide durable performance and efficiently capture carbon dioxide from ambient air.
The focus will be on porous polymer networks (PPNs), which show great promise for the technological feasibility and driving down the costs of DAC. The project aims to eventually lead to an efficient, cost-effective full-scale DAC operation.
The project is a multi-year study. If successful it will be extended into the future for the eventual development of pilot-scale and full-scale demonstrations of the technology.
The Texas A&M Energy Institute team will consist of; Stratos Pistikopoulos, director of the Texas A&M Energy Institute; Mukul Bhatia, an executive professor of geology and geophysics; Faruque Hasan, an associate professor of chemical engineering; and Hongcai Zhou, a professor of chemistry.
Pistikopoulos commented, “Carbon capture, utilization, storage, and sequestration constitutes one of the key challenges that the world is facing toward a sustainable future.”
“Capturing CO2 from air, the focus of our joint project between the Texas A&M Energy Institute and Air to Earth is an important building block in such a decarbonisation effort.”
Joseph Stark, Founder and CEO of Air to Earth, who will lead the Air to Earth team, said, “Global demand for carbon net-zero energy makes the need for natural and technology-based carbon removal crucial,”
“Air to Earth is honoured to collaborate with the Texas A&M Energy Institute and its world class team of researchers to accelerate the innovation of materials, systems and methods to drive down the cost of atmospheric carbon dioxide removal by direct air capture.”