General Electric plans to scale-up a prototype process for carbon-dioxide removal from air, with multiple larger-scale demonstrations scheduled for 2024. GE did not define Direct Air Capture (DAC) process, but it explained that it has developed a technique that draws on thermal-management and heat-exchanger technologies developed for power turbines and jet engine platforms, in combination with chemistry and material expertise for producing CO2-sorbent materials.
GE added that the Direct Air Capture thermal management design provides “an optimal environment” for the sorbent materials to remove CO2 from the air.
The GE research team is working on a similar approach in a project with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to capture potable water from “desert-like” air.
The lab-scale version of DAC has brought the GE Research division and the recently launched renewable-energy business GE Vernova into partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E.)
The effort to scale-up the prototype, DAC researchers is working on various projects with DOE, ARPA-E, Univ. of California - Berkeley, Univ. of South Alabama, TDA Research, and others to advance the sorbent materials and thermal management technologies.
