Shen et al. (2026): Proton trap engineered electric swing adsorption for scalable and cost-effective direct air capture

Yao Shen, Kai Pang, Weichen Zhao, Liang Chen, Jingkai Zhao, Jiexu Ye, Beini Zhang, Sujing Li, Wei Li, Zhen Xu, Jing Meng, Xiang Gao and Shihan Zhang, IN: Nature Communications, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75916-7

Direct air capture (DAC) is critical to achieve carbon neutrality, yet current technologies face significant barriers to widespread, cost-effective deployment. Amine-based electric swing adsorption (ESA) offers a promising low-energy, steam-free pathway, but its efficiency is fundamentally limited by an inherent 2:1 amine-to-CO₂ stoichiometric penalty. Here, the authors overcome this bottleneck by engineering a point defect-mediated proton trapping network into ESA sorbents, enabling a 1:1 amine-CO₂ stoichiometry. Their engineered sorbent achieves a CO₂ uptake of 6.57 mmol g−1 from 400 ppm CO₂, a 28.8% improvement over the state-of-the-art sorbents.

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