Accounting for carbon capture solvent cost and energy demand in the energy system

Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2025

Technical carbon dioxide removal through bioenergy with carbon capture or direct air capture (DAC) plays a role in virtually all climate mitigation scenarios. Both of these technologies rely on the use of chemical solvents or sorbents in order to capture CO2. Lately, concerns have surfaced about the cost and energy implications of producing solvents and sorbents at scale. Here, we show that the production of chemical sorbents could have significant implications on system cost, energy use and material use depending on how much they are consumed. Among the three chemical sorbents investigated, namely monoethanolamine (MEA) for post-combustion carbon capture, potassium hydroxide (KOH) for liquid DAC and polyethylenimine-silica (PEI) for solid sorbent DAC, we found that solid sorbent production for DAC represents the highest uncertainties for the system. At the high range of solid sorbent consumption, total energy system cost increased by up to 6.5%, while effects for other options were small to negligible. Scale-up of material production capacities was also substantial for MEA and PEI. While PEI has the advantage of requiring a lower sorbent regeneration temperature than KOH, the potential production cost may outweigh these benefits. There is thus a trade-off between the advantages and the additional cost uncertainty regarding sorbents. Implications of sorbent consumption for carbon capture technologies should be considered more thoroughly in scenarios relying on solid sorbent DAC.