Capturing CO₂ from the atmosphere: Rationale and Process Design Considerations

In this chapter, our aim is to provide an overview of air capture technologies that focuses on three broad topics. First, we provide an economic and technical rationale for considering direct capture of CO₂ from ambient air. Second, we describe some of the more important constraints and trade-offs involved in the design of air capture systems from the standpoint of chemical engineering and physics. Third, we provide an overview of a particular air capture technology that we are developing which combines a contactor using a high molarity sodium hydroxide solution with a titanate-cycle caustic recovery process.