Battery-based carbon capture could cut costs to $92 per ton

A team led by James Buchen at the University of Delaware has demonstrated a carbon-capture device that works like a battery. Instead of a reversible filter that heats to release CO2, the cell uses nickel hydroxide electrodes to generate hydroxide ions that react with CO2, then reverses the voltage to release the gas. The researchers say this electrochemical approach could require less energy than current systems.

In lab tests, a nine-cell stack captured CO2 using about 0.8 megawatt-hours per ton, compared with 1.5 to 3 megawatt-hours for typical ambient-air capture facilities. The team, which includes members of startup RepAir Carbon, estimates a small pilot plant would capture CO2 at roughly $566 per ton. Scaling up to a plant a thousand times larger, they project costs could drop to $92 per ton.

That figure is well below the $250–$350 per ton that Climeworks aims to reach by 2030, and it approaches the long-standing $100-per-ton goal that could make carbon capture widely adopted. The source notes that scaling projections are often optimistic, but adding more technological approaches improves the odds that one will succeed.