Carbon from air

University of Calgary climate change scientist David Keith and his team are working to efficiently capture the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide directly from the air.

In research conducted at the university, Keith and a team of researchers have showed that it is possible to reduce carbon dioxide (CO₂) using a relatively simple machine.

'At first thought, capturing CO₂ from the air where it’s at a concentration of 0.04 per cent seems absurd, when we are just starting to do cost-effective capture at power plants where CO₂ produced is at a concentration of more than 10 per cent,' says Keith, Canada research chair in energy and environment.

'But the thermodynamics suggests that air capture might only be a bit harder than capturing CO₂ from power plants.

'We are trying to turn that theory into engineering reality.'

Air capture is different than carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.

CCS involves installing equipment at, for example, a coal-fired power plant to capture carbon dioxide produced during burning of the coal, and then pipelining this CO₂ for permanent storage underground in a geological reservoir.