CO2-removal News

Peer-reviewed Publications

Otabir et al. (2025): Geochemical Impacts of CO2 Mineralization in Carbonate and Basalt Formations: A Critical Review on Challenges and Future Outlook

Prince N. Y. M. Otabir, Aaditya Khanal, Fatick Nath IN: Energy & Fuels, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.4c04424

Although sandstone reservoirs have been widely used for Carbon capture and storage (CCS) due to their favorable properties, their effectiveness is limited by slow mineral trapping. This review explores carbonate and basaltic formations as alternative CO2 storage solutions. Basalt formations contain highly reactive minerals that promote rapid CO2 mineralization. Pilot studies have demonstrated successful mineralization within 2 years. Carbonate formations also show promise for efficient CO2 trapping. However, several challenges must be addressed. These include complex interactions between CO2 and rock substrates, difficulties characterizing carbonate formations, and variable behavior in basalt formations under different conditions. This review comprehensively reviews and analyzes the current state of the art on the dissolution and mineralization processes in carbonate and basalt formations.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Smrzka et al. (2025): Marine carbon burial enhanced by microbial carbonate formation at hydrocarbon seeps

Daniel Smrzka, Yiting Tseng, Jennifer Zwicker, Andrea Schröder-Ritzrau, Norbert Frank, Anne-Désirée Schmitt, Thomas Pape, Daniel Birgel, Jörn Peckmann, Saulwood Lin & Gerhard Bohrmann IN: Communications Earth & Environment 6 (7), https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01960-0

Some of the carbon removed from Earth’s surface is stored within authigenic carbonate in marine sediments. Methane seeps are crucial sites of global marine carbon cycling sustaining microbial activity, enabling carbonate formation and the transfer of methane-derived carbon to the geosphere. Carbon sequestration rates depend on carbonate precipitation rates, which can be accelerated by mat-forming microorganisms that are ubiquitous at methane seeps and other Earth surface environments today. The authors investigate a 5-m-long drill core from an active methane seep at 1350 m water depth in the South China Sea with an exceptional abundance of pink and clear aragonite cement derived from the sulfate-driven anaerobic oxidation of methane, yet both cements precipitated under different conditions.  The results of this study provide first kinetic constraints for future quantitative carbon cycle models, emphasizing the role of biofilms in accelerating carbon sequestration in marine authigenic carbonates.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

You et al. (2025): Efficiency Evaluation and Resource Optimization of Forestry Carbon Sequestration Projects: A Case Study of State-Owned Forest Farms in Fujian Province

Meizhu You, Yan Huang, Nan Wu, Xiangzhou Yuan IN: Sustainability, 17 (1), 375, https://doi.org/10.3390/su17010375

Forestry carbon sink projects are an important pathway for achieving China’s carbon neutrality goal, with state-owned forest farms playing a leading role in the development of projects. This study collected data from 14 forestry carbon sink projects in Fujian Province, which are primarily led by state-owned forest farms. Using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), the operational efficiency of each forestry carbon sink project was evaluated and calculated, followed by a study on resource optimization allocation based on the efficiency evaluation results. 

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Oschlies et al. (2025): Perspectives and challenges of marine carbon dioxide removal

Andreas Oschlies, Lennart T. Bach, Katja Fennel, Jean-Pierre Gattuso, Nadine Mengis IN: Frontiers in Climate, 6, https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2024.1506181

Due to uncertainties about the potential and durability of many land-based approaches to deliver sufficient CDR, marine CDR options are receiving more and more interest. The authors present the current state of knowledge regarding the potentials, risks, side effects as well as challenges associated with technical feasibility, governance, monitoring, reporting and accounting of marine CDR, covering a range of biotic and geochemical approaches. We specifically discuss to what extent a comparison with direct injection of CO2 into seawater, which had been proposed decades ago and is now prohibited by international agreements, may provide guidance for evaluating some of the biotic marine CDR approaches.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Nature – Zhou et al. (2025): Contributions of countries without a carbon neutrality target to limit global warming

Jiaxin Zhou, Wei Li, Philippe Ciais, Thomas Gasser, Jingmeng Wang, Zhao Li, Lei Zhu, Mengjie Han, Jiaying He, Minxuan Sun, Li Liu, Xiaomeng Huang IN: Nature Communications 16, 468, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-55720-x

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is a key negative emission technology for climate mitigation. Some countries have made no commitment to carbon neutrality but are viewed as potential BECCS candidates. Here the authors analyze contributions of these countries to global climate mitigation with respect to BECCS using an Earth system model with explicit representations of bioenergy crops.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Xing et al. (2024): A review of influencing factors for policy interventions in the deployment of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage

Xiaofan Xing, Yuankang Xiong, Rong Wang, Yuan Gao, Siqing Xu, Philippe Ciais, Thomas Gasser, Josep Penuelas, Jordi Sardans, Jianmin Chen, Tang Xu, Renhe Zhang IN: Next Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nxsust.2024.100040

This paper reviews the latest understanding of BECCS. The key findings reveal the limitations of current models in projecting the capacity and costs of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), mainly due to insufficient consideration of ecological consequences, including availabilities of biomass and difficulties in the transportation of biomass and CO2. To reduce uncertainties in the capacity and costs of BECCS, it is urgently needed to apply spatially explicit method for estimating the life-cycle emissions and the complete cost items when deploying BECCS, optimize the network of biomass acquisition, power plants retrofitting and transportation of biomass and CO2, and represent the changes in the availability of biomass (for different types of bioenergy plants) under the impacts of climate change.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Kumar et al. (2024): The Role of Nonequilibrium Solvent Effects in Enhancing Direct CO2 Capture at the Air–Aqueous Amino Acid Interface

Nitesh Kumar, Vyacheslav S. Bryantsev, Santanu Roy IN: Journal of the American Chemical Society, https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c14612

Direct air capture (DAC) technologies are limited by the poor understanding of the dynamic role of interfaces in modulating the chemisorption of CO2 from air into solutions. While the reactivity of aqueous amine-based solvents in the bulk environment is strongly inhibited by nonequilibrium solvent effects, promoting DAC at interfaces posits a possibility to reduce the coupling with the solvent and significantly accelerate DAC. Building on an experimentally proven concept to bring an anionic glycine absorbent to the interface through ion-pairing interactions with a positively charged surfactant, the authors establish the fundamental time scales for key elementary steps involved in DAC with rate theory and enhanced-sampling ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. The authors elucidate the mechanism by which water influences the free energy barriers and dynamical crossing-recrossing of those barriers, affecting the reaction rates.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Nature – Wu et al. (2024): Global CO2 uptake by cement materials accounts 1930–2023

Songbin Wu, Zi Shao, Robbie M. Andrew, Longfei Bing, Jiaoyue Wang, Le Niu, Zhu Liu, Fengming Xi IN: Scientific Data, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-04234-8

This study employs a comprehensive analytical model to estimate the CO2 uptake via hydrated cement carbonation, including concrete, mortar, construction waste, and cement kiln dust (CKD), covering major cement production and consumption regions worldwide from 1930 to 2023. In 2023, the global annual cement CO2 uptake reached 0.93 Gt/yr (95% CI: 0.80–1.13Gt/yr). From 1930 to 2023, the global cumulative cement CO2 absorption reached 23.89 Gt (95% CI: 20.47–28.74 Gt), equivalent to 52.32% of the CO2 process emissions from cement production during the same period. Our system for estimating cement emissions and uptake is updated annually, providing consistent and accurate data for the cement industry and carbon cycle studies.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Hosseinpour et al. (2025):Techno-economic study of a direct air capture system based on the carbonation of Ca(OH)2 plates integrated into cooling towers

Mohammad Hosseinpour, Bijan Hejazi, Yolanda A. Criado IN: Journal of Cleaner Production, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.144545

One of the main challenges in DAC processes is the high energy and economic costs associated with airflow systems in large-scale air contactors. Recently, there has been a growing interest in using hydrated lime to capture low concentrations of CO2 (∼450 ppm) from the atmosphere, particularly at higher air relative humidity. Cooling towers, commonly used in various industrial units to cool process water, provide an ideal environment for hydrated lime-based DAC systems as they expose large flows of ambient air to water. This study assessed the feasibility of integrating vertically oriented parallel flat plates of Ca(OH)2 into the upper section of an industrial mechanical draft cooling tower to simultaneously perform the dual tasks of water cooling and CO2 capture from the passing air.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

te Pas et al. (2024): Accounting for retarded weathering products in comparing methods for quantifying carbon dioxide removal in a short-term enhanced weathering study

Emily E. E. M. te Pas, Elliot Chang, Alison R. Marklein, Rob N. J. Comans, Mathilde Hagens IN: Frontiers in Climate, doi: 10.3389/fclim.2024.1524998

The authors aimed to contribute to the development of a standardized procedure for CDR quantification by complementing the results of a recently published soil column experiment, in which crushed olivine, wollastonite, and albite were added to soils, with total fusion ICP-OES analyses of base cation concentrations. CDR quantified by soil-based mass balance approaches was only comparable to leachate-based total alkalinity measurements after correcting for the weathering products that were retained within the soil profile.

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