DAC-Impact: Technology development from lab to pilot plant

Since 2001, the Research Group for Industrial Plant Engineering and Application of Digital Methods has been developing prototypes for direct CO2 capture from ambient air. In collaboration with the Dharma Karma Foundation, which is financing the project, four prototypes have been developed and tested to date. The topic of DAC (Direct Air Capture) is no longer being discussed from the perspective of whether DAC is advantageous enough to play a role in combating the climate crisis but rather on the experimental further development and minimization of DAC's energy consumption. Most scenarios for reducing CO2 emissions now rely on DAC as an indispensable component alongside other technologies.

The goal of the DAC Impact project is therefore to develop a technology that consumes significantly less energy while using low-temperature heat compared to comparable technologies currently available.

Soft launch event of the DAC pilot plant - APU1: Pilot plant as swap body with technology inside in the background, in front of it the DAC-Impact team, about 30 people, in festive clothes and in a good mood posing for the photo.

© Alissar Najjar, TU Wien

APU1_Team

Prototyping: The best solution emerges from a variety of ideas

A process has been developed at TU Wien that uses solid adsorbents to capture CO2 from the air. The vast majority of the energy required is low-temperature heat (waste heat) in the range of 70 to 100 °C. At the start of the research, the main focus was on creating a design as compact as possible to enable a portable application that could be easily integrated into building climate control systems. In the course of the project, the use case was expanded and the aim was to minimize the heat and energy required for the capture process. Unlike many scientific projects, the approach taken here was prototyping: after each plant and process design, the specific advantages and disadvantages were weighed up and the next development steps were defined in order to find the most suitable plant.

DACling - V1, the first prototype of the DAC-Impact project stands on a white roll-up box. The DAC-Impact team stands or kneels around the prototype in festive clothing (about 11 people), next to it a project roll-up. In the background are the wooden beams of the Kuppelsaal of the TU Wien.

© Matthias Heisler, goemb.at

DAClingV1_team

This first prototype features a space-saving system design for use in heating, air conditioning, and ventilation technology. The geometry is designed so that it can be used in building piping systems, for example. This initial approach focused primarily on space requirements. The next step was to expand the focus to include energy efficiency and to redesign the process and thus the prototype accordingly.

DACling - V2: Model of the DAC fluidized bed design in grey, next to it two pictures of system details, also in grey.

© Johannes Fuchs

DAClingV2_Model

A completely new process was developed for the DACling V2, which is designed to enable the most efficient separation possible. The prototype now uses a fluidized bed process in which adsorption and regeneration take place separately—this process design was also patented in the project. The main advantage of the DACling V2 is therefore its decoupled design, which makes CO2 separation highly efficient. The challenge for the next prototype was to further improve the performance of the fluidized bed adsorption process.

Graphic illustrating the differences between the conventional design and the new Austrian design. In the new design, adsorption and desorption take place in different reactors..

© Josef Fuchs, TU Wien

DAClingV3- Austrian Design

Based on the results of DACling V2, an improved version was designed and built. V3 combines the decoupled design with a fixed-bed adsorption process. The design aims to achieve exceptional energy efficiency and simplicity.

DAC-Impact Pilot: Truck swap body in DAC-Impact design (longitudinal stripes that become more and more pointed and a color gradient from deep blue to turquoise against a white background) with open doors that give a small insight into the technology inside. Next to it is a roll-up. Leaves from trees and bushes in the background.

© Alissar Najjar, TU Wien

APU1

The first pilot plant combines the advantages of a decoupled process design and fixed-bed adsorption with additional innovations in the regeneration process. This means that further energy improvements can be achieved with the technological approach of APU-1 (Austrian Pilot Unit 1).

Our Project Highlights - DAC-Impact

What sets our DAC research apart:

  • Technology development from lab to pilot plant
  • Flexible and intelligent process development and modeling
  • Development of two patents in the field of DAC technology
  • Experimental investigation and customized analysis of the adsorbent used and of potential adsorbent variants
  • Experimental operation of the APU-1 for over 1000 hours to date under various weather conditions
  • Our technology development is already being transferred by our partners into an initial commercial plant design

Launch of the Austrian Pilot Unit 1 (APU1) research facility

Launch APU1

DAC-Impact Facts

The goal of the DAC Impact project is to develop a technology that consumes significantly less energy while using low-temperature heat (wate heat) than comparable technologies currently available.

Phase I: 2021 - 2022
Phase II: 2022 - 2025
Phase IIb: 2025 - ongoing

Dharma Karma Foundation logo

© Dharma Karma Foundation

Logo Dharma Karma Foundation

The TU Wien would like to thank the Dharma Karma Foundation for its research partnership.
The results achieved were financed by and are the sole property of the Dharma Karma Foundation.
https://www.thedkfoundation.org

DACLab Inc. logo.

© DACLab Inc.

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DACLAB Inc.
675 High St, Palo Alto, CA 94301, USA
https://daclab.us
 

DACworx Engineering GmbH Logo.

© DACworx

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DACworx Engineering GmbH
https://dacworx.eu
 

Scientific papers

Patents