In the journal nature energy, the research team from the University of Cambridge presents their reactor, which extracts CO2 from the atmosphere at night and converts it into synthesis gas during the day using sunlight – the construction is powered by sunlight:

Abstract:

“Direct capture of CO2 from the air is an emerging technology for reducing atmospheric CO2 levels, but it is currently costly and the long-term consequences of CO2 storage are uncertain. An alternative approach is to utilize atmospheric CO2 on-site to produce high value-added renewable fuels. However, current CO2 utilization technologies predominantly require a concentrated CO2 feed or high temperatures.

Herein, we report a gas-phase double-bed direct-air carbon capture and utilization flow reactor that produces syngas (CO + H2) by on-site utilization of air-captured CO2 using light, without the need for high temperature or high pressure. The reactor consists of a bed of solid silica-amine adsorbent to capture aerobic CO2 and produce CO2-free air; concentrated light is used to release the captured CO2 and convert it to syngas over a bed of silica/alumina-titania-cobalt-bis(terpyridine) molecule semiconductor photocatalyst. As a counter reaction, we use the oxidation of depolymerized poly(ethylene terephthalate) plastic.

We envision that this technology will work daytime-dependent, i.e. CO2 will be captured at night  and converted into synthesis gas under concentrated sunlight during the day.”

Click here for the article on nature.com: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-025-01714-y#Fig1;

(Source: nature.com; Open access, Published: February 13, 2025]