KIER boosts direct air CO₂ capture capacity 19-fold in just one year

The research team led by Dr. Young Cheol Park of the CCS Research Department at the Korea Institute of Energy Research (President: Yi, Chang-Keun, hereinafter “KIER”) successfully increased the amount of CO₂ captured from the air by 19-fold in just one year, from approximately 1 kg per day. The newly developed process also successfully completed more than 1,000 hours of demonstration operation, indicating strong potential for larger-scale demonstrations in the future.

The direct air capture (DAC*) technology developed by the research team uses a dry sorbent to directly capture and remove CO₂ from the air. Unlike conventional carbon capture technologies applied to emission sources such as factory exhaust, it can be installed without space constraints, and is therefore regarded as a key technology for achieving carbon neutrality.

* DAC (Direct Air Capture) Technology Principle: Air is drawn into the process equipment using a blower → the sorbent selectively captures CO₂ from the incoming air → heat and/or vacuum is applied to the sorbent to release and extract high-concentration CO₂ → the recovered CO₂ is compressed and stored for use, including as a feedstock for products.

Building on last year’s demonstration of a 1 kg/day capture system, the research team advanced the process by optimizing the sorbent loading, gas throughput, and thermal management design. The team also newly adopted an amine polymer–based dry sorbent (developed by the research group of Prof. Minkee Choi at KAIST) and built a system capable of capturing up to 19 kg of CO₂ per day with over 95% purity. This performance is roughly equivalent to the daily CO₂ uptake of about 1,000 pine trees.

* Recovery of high-purity CO₂: The captured CO₂ is compressed and liquefied, then stored. Higher CO₂ purity reduces the cost of compression and liquefaction, and it also provides advantages for CO₂ utilization, as higher-purity CO₂ is generally more favorable for reuse.

Demonstration results for the newly developed system confirmed that key indicators, including sorbent performance, thermal management efficiency, and reactor pressure drop, remained stable even after more than 1,000 hours of operation. This allowed the team to secure data that could not be obtained from the previous 1 kg/day demonstration, such as stability during long-term continuous operation and performance variation across process cycles, thereby establishing a foundation for scaling up to larger systems in the future.

Based on the results of this demonstration, the research team plans to scale up and demonstrate a 200 kg/day capture process. Through stepwise scale-up, the team also expects to be able to demonstrate a facility capable of capturing more than 1,000 tons of CO₂ per year by 2035.

Dr. Young Cheol Park, the principal investigator, said, “This demonstration achievement marks a starting point for securing a homegrown direct air capture (DAC) technology in the Republic of Korea,” adding, “We will work to further develop it into a technology capable of reducing CO₂ emissions on the scale of millions of tons per year, contributing to the nation’s carbon neutrality goals.”

Meanwhile, this research was carried out with support from the DACU Core Technology Development Program funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea. Led by KIER, the project brought together KAIST, Korea University, and GS E&C to collaborate across the full value chain from materials to process, system, and demonstration.