Recent advances in integrated CO2 capture and utilization: a review

Abstract

CO₂ is one of the most important greenhouse gases leading to severe environmental issues. The increase of CO₂ emissions from the consumption of fossil fuels has received much research attention. One promising solution to reduce the impact of CO₂ is to integrate CO₂ capture and utilization (ICCU), which shows many advantages compared to traditional separate CO₂ capture and utilization (CCU) processes. The ICCU process shortens the path of CO₂ utilization such as CO₂ transportation and storage, and further negates the need for purification of products owing to the high conversion of CO₂. As an emerging integrated process, the improvement of ICCU performance is crucial for future applications. This review analyses and discusses the influence of the key process parameters of ICCU such as temperature, the presence of O₂ or H₂O in CO₂, GHSV etc., to provide guidance for future investigation. The development and application of dual functional materials (DFMs) in ICCU are investigated and the roles and influence of interaction between adsorbents and catalysts are discussed. CaO showed superiority as an adsorbent to combine with CO₂ utilization catalysts owing to its low cost and high CO₂ capture capacity. The DFM system has opportunities to retard the deactivation of CaO owing to the presence of catalysts and the formed interaction. Nevertheless, there are several considerations from the industrial application perspective such as the reduction of overall cost and the possible post-processing requirements.