DAC2COnversion
What is DAC2Conversion?
DAC2Conversion is Monash Carbon Capture & Conversion’s artificial stream, focused on directly capturing and sequestrating carbon dioxide from the air using synthetic methods.
This sub-team consists of student engineers working on two unique sections:
Building direct-air-capture (DAC) rigs to pull CO2 from the air and store it in both solid and liquid states
Using electrochemistry to separate the captured CO2 mixture into CO2 and lean absorbent. The CO2 is then sent to another flow cell to further convert it into to useful products such as formic acid.
Figure 2. Preparing components of the EMAR flow cell
MORE ABOUT THE TECH
Figure 1. Initial steady-state contactor (left) & current solid-state contactor (right)
what are we working on?
Our team of student engineers is currently prototyping two types of DAC rigs, a solid state contactor and a gas-liquid contactor to continuously pull CO2 from the atmosphere.
They are also trying to optimise the electrochemical processes involved in transforming CO2 and reverse-engineer a commercial flow cell to better understand the functions and processes.
Our goal is to develop a pre-pilot scale rig that combines all these technologies together into a fully-functioning continuous process!
Figure 3. EMAR flow cell (left) & formic acid flow cell (right)
Our team has been investigating a novel pathway for CO2 desorption, called EMAR. Used to separate the CO2 from the CO2 mixture captured from our DAC units, Electrochemically-Mediated-Amine-Regeneration (EMAR) has shown great potential as a desorption pathway, being 3-4x less energy intensive than traditional pathways!
Our team hopes to utilise this in conjunction with our DAC rigs to form a continuous process of capturing and sequestering CO2 from our atmospheres.