Recent advances in carbon capture storage and utilisation technologies: a review

Human activities have led to a massive increase in CO2 emissions as a primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to climate change with higher than 1 degrees C global warming than that of the pre-industrial level. We evaluate the three major technologies that are utilised for carbon capture: pre-combustion, post-combustion and oxyfuel combustion. We review the advances in carbon capture, storage and utilisation. We compare carbon uptake technologies with techniques of carbon dioxide separation. Monoethanolamine is the most common carbon sorbent; yet it requires a high regeneration energy of 3.5 GJ per tonne of CO2. Alternatively, recent advances in sorbent technology reveal novel solvents such as a modulated amine blend with lower regeneration energy of 2.17 GJ per tonne of CO2. Graphene-type materials show CO2 adsorption capacity of 0.07 mol/g, which is 10 times higher than that of specific types of activated carbon, zeolites and metal-organic frameworks. CO2 geosequestration provides an efficient and long-term strategy for storing the captured CO2 in geological formations with a global storage capacity factor at a Gt-scale within operational timescales. Regarding the utilisation route, currently, the gross global utilisation of CO2 is lower than 200 million tonnes per year, which is roughly negligible compared with the extent of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions, which is higher than 32,000 million tonnes per year. Herein, we review different CO2 utilisation methods such as direct routes, i.e. beverage carbonation, food packaging and oil recovery, chemical industries and fuels. Moreover, we investigated additional CO2 utilisation for base-load power generation, seasonal energy storage, and district cooling and cryogenic direct air CO2 capture using geothermal energy. Through bibliometric mapping, we identified the research gap in the literature within this field which requires future investigations, for instance, designing new and stable ionic liquids, pore size and selectivity of metal-organic frameworks and enhancing the adsorption capacity of novel solvents. Moreover, areas such as techno-economic evaluation of novel solvents, process design and dynamic simulation require further effort as well as research and development before pilot- and commercial-scale trials.

Automated summary

This article evaluates various carbon capture and utilization technologies, including adsorbent technology, CO2 geosequestration, and CO2 utilization routes. Carbon capture technology is seeking more efficient and cost-effective adsorbents and storage methods, while CO2 utilization needs to increase utilization rates to reduce emissions.