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Review
. 2023 Mar 16:1-44.
doi: 10.1007/s10311-023-01589-z. Online ahead of print.

Carbon dioxide separation and capture by adsorption: a review

Affiliations
Review

Carbon dioxide separation and capture by adsorption: a review

Mohsen Karimi et al. Environ Chem Lett. .

Abstract

Rising adverse impact of climate change caused by anthropogenic activities is calling for advanced methods to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Here, we review adsorption technologies for carbon dioxide capture with focus on materials, techniques, and processes, additive manufacturing, direct air capture, machine learning, life cycle assessment, commercialization and scale-up.

Keywords: Adsorption technology; Biogas upgrading; Carbon dioxide capture; Climate change mitigation; Sustainability.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interestAuthors declare no competing financial interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The global land–ocean temperature index for evaluating the average enhancement of annual global temperature of earth from 1880. Data provided by NASA (NASAClimate 2022a)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Trends of global energy consumption of oil, gas, coal, solar, biofuels, biomass, hydropower, nuclear, wind and other renewable sources during the last two century (OurWorldinData 2022)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The share of different greenhouse gases in the global warming including carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide as well as chlorofluorocarbon, hydrochlorofluorocarbon and hydrofluorocarbon (Dong et al. 2019). CO2, carbon dioxide; CH4, methane; CFC, chlorofluorocarbon; HCFC, hydrochlorofluorocarbon; HFC, hydrofluorocarbon
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Comparison between a the total global energy supply and the total renewable sector increasing rate and b different produced renewable energies globally during the last two decades including hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal and bioenergy (WBA 2022)
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Estimation of Guidehouse Netherlands B.V. for the European Union plus UK countries biomethane production potential by anaerobic digestion in 2030 to meet the European Commission target (Sacha Alberici et al. 2022). bcm, billion cubic meters
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
a Biomethane production trend in European countries from 2011 to 2021 (European Commission ; Sacha Alberici et al. 2022). b The capacity of biomethane production of each European country countries in 2018 (EBA 2021). bcm, billion cubic meters
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Technologies for carbon dioxide separation and capture including absorption, adsorption, membrane, cryogenic and chemical looping (Canevesi et al. ; Madejski et al. 2022). CO2, carbon dioxide; MOF, metal–organic framework; COF, covalent organic framework
Fig. 8
Fig. 8
Comparison between energy consumption, maintenance cost and operating cost of different carbon dioxide separation and capture technologies such as water scrubber, organic solvent scrubber, chemical solvent scrubber, pressure swing adsorption, membrane and cryogenic (Spitoni et al. 2019). MWh, megawatt-hour
Fig. 9
Fig. 9
Breakthrough measurement apparatus for gas adsorption studies. This technique is the most favorable method for measuring the gas adsorption mixtures, while it also requires the highly accurate detectors
Fig. 10
Fig. 10
Gravimetric unit for gas adsorption studies using a magnetic suspension balance. This technique is the most direct adsorption method for the assessment of loading capacity of sorbates, which relies on a little required calculation
Fig. 11
Fig. 11
a A principle of volumetric measurement for the assessment of gas adsorption, b a simple volumetric apparatus for gas adsorption measurements. Only practical for single component gas adsorption studies. PC, personal computer
Fig. 12
Fig. 12
The volumetric-gravimetric technique for gas adsorption measurement. It has the benefits of both volumetric and gravimetric techniques, which allows the feasibility of binary co-adsorption without the necessity of employing routine gas analyzers such as a mass spectrometer or gas chromatograph
Fig. 13
Fig. 13
The first two-column pressure swing adsorption unit of Charles Skarstrom, which includes four main steps such as feed, blowdown or evacuation, purge and pressurization
Fig. 14
Fig. 14
An architecture of multilayer feed-forward artificial neural networks to develop a model for considered system with four independent variables and one output
Fig. 15
Fig. 15
Carbon capture cost of different processes as a function of carbon dioxide concentration, data from IEA for 2020 (IEA 2022). tCO2, tons of carbon dioxide; USD, United States Dollar; DAC, direct air capture; H2, hydrogen; CO2, carbon dioxide

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