Rouzbeh: Experimental Study and Modelling of Monolith Structures for Direct Air Capture

CO₂ is a major greenhouse gas contributing to global climate change, making effective mitigation technologies increasingly important. Direct Air Capture (DAC), which removes CO₂ directly from ambient air, has gained substantial interest as a negative-emission solution. Monolithic adsorbents are particularly promising for DAC, as they can handle high gas flow rates with lower pressure drops than packed-bed systems. The material structure study and optimizing air-solid contactor design are therefore critical to improving the overall efficiency of DAC technology. In this project, a series of monolith geometries is designed to investigate how structural variations influence CO₂ adsorption performance in DAC applications.

Advanced multiphysics simulations are employed to evaluate flow behaviour, pressure drop, and mass-transfer characteristics across different monolith geometries, enabling the identification of optimal designs for enhanced capture efficiency. Following the computational assessment, CO₂ sorbent materials are fabricated through high-precision 3D printing into the selected monolithic structures and subsequently functionalised with a polymeric amine. In parallel, a dedicated experimental setup is designed and constructed to evaluate the performance of the 3D-printed monoliths in conditions relevant to DAC operation. This setup enables rigorous testing of air-solid contact and adsorption kinetics, providing a comprehensive framework for validating the simulation outcomes.

This project is a collaboration with Skytree and supported by TKI Nieuw Gas.