Strategies for mitigating carbon dioxide emissions: advanced carbon capture and storage technologies

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is vital for cutting CO₂ emissions and tackling climate change. The CCS innovations of the last decades can be categorized based on the post- or pre-combustion capture, oxy-fuel combustion, and chemical looping combustion (CLC) approaches used. These techniques are primarily aimed towards capturing CO₂ that would be emitted from industrial sources or power plants in separate, manicured environments prior to its release into the atmosphere. For instance, post-combustion capture can be applied to coal-fired sources to extract CO₂ from flue gases, whereas pre-combustion technologies, as the name implies, remove CO₂ before fuel is burned and are typically used for gasification processes. However, despite their promise, high energy demand, large implementing costs, and long-term storage risks stay as major hurdles to mass adoption. The different levels of technology development for carbon capture and storage and carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) have made significant developments for three decades, representing the continuing interests of scientists and engineers, but also have significant shortcomings in terms of efficiency, economy, and environmental impacts. This research provides evidence of the importance of CCS for reducing CO₂ emissions, a critical component in meeting global sustainability targets, especially in hard-to-decarbonize sectors. The review differs from earlier studies in that it reviews current technological innovations and assesses their performance while also recommending pathways through existing barriers to large-scale implementation.