Pujol et al. (2025): Prospective life cycle and techno-economic analysis of direct air capture-to-urea production under CBAM
Albert Pujol, Mads Heuckendorff, Thomas H. Pedersen, Mijndert Van der Spek, IN: Journal of Cleaner Production, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2025.146984
This work investigates the environmental and economic implications of integrating Direct Air Capture (DAC) technologies with the urea fertiliser process under CO₂ pricing policies. The developed framework combines process modelling with prospective life cycle and techno-economic assessments. A cradle-to-grave life cycle analysis (LCA) evaluates the environmental footprint of DAC-urea compared to the conventional fossil-based route. Furthermore, a prospective LCA assesses the environmental impact of DAC-urea in 2050 under different climate scenarios. Different foreground system scenarios based on learning curves are defined. Ultimately, the focus is to investigate the market advantage that might arise given improved environmental performance of DAC-urea under EU’s carbon tax on imported carbon-intensive goods. Denmark and Egypt serve as case studies to demonstrate how policies can incentivise sustainable urea production globally.