Assessment of the Potential of Electrochemical Steps in Direct Air Capture through Techno-Economic Analysis

Direct air capture (DAC) technologies are proposed to reduce the atmospheric CO₂ concentration to mitigate climate change and simultaneously provide carbon as a feedstock independent of fossil resources. The currently high energy demand and cost of DAC technologies are challenging and could limit the significance of DAC processes. The present work estimates the potential energy demand and the levelized cost of capture (LCOC) of liquid solvent absorption and solid adsorption DAC processes in the long term. A consistent framework is applied to compare nonelectrochemical to electrochemical DAC processes and estimate the LCOC depending on the electricity price. We determine the equivalent cell voltage needed for the electrochemical steps to achieve comparable or lower energy demand than nonelectrochemical processes. The capital expenses (CapEx) of the electrochemical steps are estimated using analogies to processes that are similar in function. The results are calculated for a range of initial data of CapEx and energy demand to include uncertainties in the data.