1) Air-to-X pipeline

Essential products such as polymers, fuels, and food resources are still largely produced from fossil resources, releasing vast amounts of CO₂ and accelerating climate change.

One promising route to carbon neutrality is to produce these carbon-based products by sourcing carbon from atmospheric CO₂ in air, which we call “air-to-X”. Implementing an air-to-X pipeline involves three main steps: (1) capturing CO₂ from air, (2) regenerating sorbents while separating high-purity CO₂, and (3) converting this CO₂ into chemical feedstocks such as syngas or ethylene. These feedstocks can then be further upgraded into various products such as fuels or food resources.

To make this air-to-X pipeline viable, we need sorbents and catalysts that minimize energy demand in each process, and the entire system must be scalable to address the approximately 40 gigatonnes of CO₂ emitted globally each year. To this end, our research focuses on developing scalable materials and systems to enable air-to-X pipelines at scale.