Direct air capture (DAC) is the use of chemical or physical processes to extract carbon dioxide (CO 2) directly from the ambient air. If the extracted CO 2
Our Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology does this by pulling in atmospheric air, then through a series of chemical reactions, extracts the carbon dioxide (CO2) from it while returning the rest of the air to the environment. ### Our Direct Air Capture technology has been designed to continuously capture CO2 from atmospheric air and deliver it as a gas for use or storage, bringing together four major pieces of equipment that each have industrial precedent. CE’s Direct Air Capture process, showing the major unit operations - air contactor, pellet reactor, slaker, and calciner - which collectively capture, purify, and compress atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub>. CE’s Direct Air Capture process, showing the major unit operations - air contactor, pellet reactor, slaker, and calciner - which collectively capture, purify, and compress atmospheric CO2. AIR TO FUELS™ plants combine CE’s Direct Air Capture technology with hydrogen generation and fuel synthesis capabilities to deliver low carbon intensity synthetic fuel.
Direct Air Capture (DAC) is a carbon removal technology that captures carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. The amount of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere by DAC is directly measurable by monitoring the flow and concentration of captured carbon dioxide at the point of storage. This means that there is a high level of confidence in the amount of carbon dioxide being captured by a DAC project as well as its climate benefit. DAC projects can essentially be deployed anywhere in the world where there is sufficient access to low-carbon energy and the infrastructure and capacity needed to store the captured carbon dioxide. As DAC removes carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere there is an immediate benefit to the climate at the point of removal. **Benefits from captured carbon dioxide**. The captured carbon dioxide can be used to produce synthetic fuels, plastics or other chemicals—creating useful products without adding additional carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Other DAC technologies also use electricity, membranes or water to filter carbon dioxide from the air.
Accelerating the commercial availability of large-scale electric calcination technology is considered a high priority to enable L-DAC plants to operate purely on renewable energy. In November 2022, 1PointFive and Carbon Engineering announced plans to deploy 100 large-scale DAC facilities (each with a capture capacity of up to 1 Mt per year) by 2035, at least 30 of which are expected to be deployed within the United States, owing to the IRA’s recent increase to the 45Q tax credit. Support for DAC has come from programmes such as X-Prize (offering up to USD 100 million for as many as four promising carbon removal proposals, including DAC) and Breakthrough Energy’s Catalyst programme (which raises money from philanthropists, governments and companies to invest in critical decarbonisation technologies, including DAC). For this reason, DAC needs to be demonstrated at scale, sooner rather than later, to reduce uncertainties regarding future deployment potential and costs, and to ensure that these technologies can be available to support the transition to net zero emissions and beyond.
Many of those strategies combine dramatic cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions with the use of direct air capture (DAC), a technology that
Direct air capture (DAC) makes thermodynamic sense because the minimum energy needed to separate CO₂ from the atmosphere is set by its low
**Direct air capture (DAC) with sequestration is one carbon removal method that is already being developed, and in some cases deployed, today.** DAC is theoretically highly scalable and can be coupled with permanent CO2 storage. As of August 2025, much of this funding was under review or frozen, including for the DAC hubs, creating uncertainty about the future of DAC and broader CDR demonstration and deployment in the U.S. The 45Q tax credit, which was expanded in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, provides up to $180 per tonne of CO2 captured through DAC and stored permanently. There are also concerns that CO2 captured through DAC could be used to prolong fossil fuel production through a process known as "enhanced oil recovery." While enhanced oil recovery permanently sequesters the injected CO2, it also produces fossil fuels, which reduces the climate benefit of carbon removal and can cause negative impacts to the local environment and nearby communities. To capture half a million tonnes of CO2 — the scale of the largest DAC facility under construction today — 0.3-33 square kilometers would be needed for the plant and the energy resource.
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