Carbon Dioxide Capture Technology Applications for Climate Change Mitigation: Policy Requirements, Practical Challenges, and Optimization Pathways

Abstract

Carbon dioxide (CO2) capture technology constitutes a critical pathway for mitigating global climate change and achieving carbon neutrality, with its primary objective being the reduction of atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Core methodologies encompass chemical absorption, physical adsorption, membrane separation, cryogenic distillation, and biological capture. These technologies facilitate direct emission reductions and, synergistically combined with geological sequestration, enable long-term carbon storage. Notably, direct air capture (DAC), leveraging adsorption-desorption cycles, offers significant advantages: its deployment is geographically unconstrained, facilitating flexible siting, and exhibits strong compatibility with renewable energy integration, thereby enhancing its environmental benefits. Consequently, DAC has garnered substantial academic and industrial interest as a pivotal pathway towards global carbon neutrality, alongside the particularly prominent post-combustion capture. This paper comprehensively reviews the current application landscape of CO2 capture technologies. Optimization strategies are proposed from technological, application, and policy perspectives, aiming to provide theoretical insights for fostering the synergy between technology commercialization and climate governance. Despite the promising prospects, CO2 capture technologies still face notable challenges. Chemically absorbent-based methods, while mature, suffer from high energy consumption during solvent regeneration, limiting their cost-effectiveness. Physical adsorption and membrane separation, though energy-efficient, are constrained by low selectivity and scalability issues in large-scale industrial applications. Cryogenic distillation, effective for high-purity CO2 streams, struggles with excessive energy input for dilute emissions. Biological capture, relying on photosynthetic organisms, is hindered by slow reaction rates and sensitivity to environmental conditions. Direct air capture, despite its flexibility, remains costly due to low atmospheric CO2 concentration, demanding advanced materials like high-capacity adsorbents to improve efficiency. Post-combustion capture, widely applied in power plants and industrial boilers, requires existing facilities, posing technical.  Addressing these obstacles necessitates innovation, from material science breakthroughs to process engineering optimizations, coupled with supportive policies to drive technological iteration and market adoption.