Direct Air Capture (DAC)

and 

Carbon Sequestration in Building Materials

POCS: MML - PAM CHU, ANDREW ALLEN NCNR - DAN NEUMANN, CRAIG BROWN EL: ARON NEWMAN

VCAT – Oct 26, 2021

dac.ccus@nist.gov
Global Climate Goals

IPCC Special Report 2019; NASEM Negative Emissions Technologies... 2019; Energy Frontiers Initiative 2019

Paris Agreement goal: 

Limit global temperature 

rise to < 2 °C

Difficult to decarbonize all 

sectors of the economy

Need net negative 

emissions technologies to 

meet climate goals

2
Why Direct Air Capture?

Negative Emission Technologies 

Remove CO2 from ambient air – permanently store CO2

• 10’s Gt/y globally 

• Acceptable costs < $100/t CO2

• Achieve in climate relevant timeframe 2030-2050

Direct Air Capture 

• Chemical processes to remove CO2

• High potential capture capacity and scalable

Schematic-carbon sequestration 

in geologic formation

Washington Post, Feb 2016

Schematic-direct air capture

Washington Post, Feb 2016

3
Direct Air Capture – Today

Climeworks & Carbfix – Iceland

4000 tons CO2/year; Operational Sept 2021

Solid sorbent

Carbon Engineering – Canada & Texas

~400 tons CO2/year

Liquid sorbent

DAC and Air-to-Fuel

Klaus Lackner ASU & Silicon Kingdom Holdings

Mechanical Tree Farm – Arizona

Passive collection – Moisture swing

Prototype Dec 2021

4
Direct Air Capture Challenges

• Capture 400 ppm CO2 from ambient air, energy intensive

• Understand fundamental physics & chemistry driving the processes

• New & multiple technologies, new materials, high costs

• Rapid scale-up - 4000 t now to 10 Gt CO2/y by 2050 

Why NIST?

NETL, Cost and Performance Baseline for Fossil Energy Plants, Revision 3, July 2015

NIST role - Develop benchmark materials, measurements, data, models, standards to 

accelerate innovation, validate performance, & enable commercialization

5
Outreach and stakeholder engagement 

Industry, academia, and Federal agencies

• Mini-workshops

• Seminars and NIST colloquia

• SME discussions

• Interagency working groups

Recommendations from stakeholders

Confirmed need for validation of:

• New materials & technologies

• Scalable solutions

• Global carbon accounting

CO2 adsorption Mg-MOF74

Solid Sorbents

Membranes

Mineralization Carbonate 

content 

measurement

6
0 1 2 3 4

0

1

2

3

4

DS 1-1 DS 1-2 

DS 2-1 DS 2-2

DS 3-1 DS 3-2 

DS 4-1 DS 4-2

DS 5-1 DS 5-2 

DS 6-1 DS 6-2

DS 7-1 DS 7-2 

DS 8-1 DS 8-2

DS 9-1 DS 9-2 

DS 10-1 DS 10-2

DS 11-1 DS 11-2

DS 12-1 DS 12-2

DS 13-1 DS 13-2

DS 14-1 DS 14-2

DS 15-1 DS 15-2

DS 16-1 DS 16-2

DS 17-1 DS 17-2

DS 18-1 DS 18-2

95% u.b. 95% u.b.

nex (mmol/g)

Pressure (MPa)

Expansion of sorbent characterization 

Developing customized capabilities

• Breakthrough measurements 

under real-world DAC conditions

Facility for Adsorbent Characterization and 

Testing (FACT Lab)

• Quality-assured reference isotherms

• Interlaboratory studies

Binary gas adsorption measurements

CO2 ZMS-5 isotherm

Proficiency Test

NIST Reference Material

8852 

ZSM-5 zeolite

ZSM-5

CO2

SO2/NO2

CH4/CO

O2

N2/air

H2O

Column

Temp Control

Flow

Flow

Detector

Detector Pressure

Control

Pressure

Control

Flow

Controllers

Pressure

manifold

Pressure

manifold

8–20 sccm

20–50 L/min

Turbo

Pump

Pump

Vent

7
Leveraging NIST expertise

Phase-modulated IR 

with mass

Candidate 

Reference 

MML Materials EL

Nanocalorimetry

Strength, creep & 

fracture

Elemental Mapping

Structure/microstructure 

characterization

Crystal Structure

NCNR

Locating 

CO2 in MOFs

Water dynamics 

when curing cements

<0.1 nm 1 – 2000 nm Nanosecond dynamics

8

Structure
Carbon Capture, Use, and Storage

Energy Futures Initiative, 2019

FY21 NIST Appropriations

9