The Helmholtz project DACStorE - A Comprehensive Approach to Harnessing the Innovation Potential of Direct Air Capture and Storage for Reaching CO2-Neutrality (https://www.dacstore-project.com/de) is organizing an information day on direct air capture (DAC) on September 10, 2024 at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology - Campus North - Foyer of the Zeiss Innovation Hub - Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 6, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen.

DAC belongs to the portfolio of carbon dioxide removal methods. These methods are needed to reach the net zero emission targets set by many countries by compensating for the emissions which cannot be avoided despite all efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. DAC is a technology field that has seen massive financial support from private investors as well as public funding in recent years and is currently undergoing technological diversification with many new players. The goal is to reduce the cost and the energy consumption per ton of CO2 captured down to a level that makes widespread use feasible as well as to scale up the technologies under investigation. This development is an expression of the widespread recognition worldwide that DAC is needed as a technological solution to CO2 removal on a large scale beyond the 2030s in order to complement nature-based processes for CO2 extraction from the atmosphere as well as bioenergy coupled with CO2 removal and storage, and therefore a rapid ramp-up of the DAC industry must be achieved.

The DACStorE project is assessing different DAC technologies from a systems perspective and is also contributing to the development of novel DAC technologies, for example using novel CO2 adsorbents, membrane-based contactors, and electro-chemically regenerated DAC methods. The information day will discuss both the general status of the field and the achievements and plans of the DACStorE project, and here in particular technology and service offers from the DACStorE consortium to companies already working in the field or planning to start activities related to DAC.

The target groups of the information day therefore include scientists from other disciplines as well as the interested public, elected officials and decision-makers who would like to find out more about DAC, and companies that are interested or already active in DAC.

The program includes presentations on the technological development status of the main DAC processes from recognized experts from inside and outside the consortium
and the opportunity for detailed discussions with the scientists working in the project as part of a poster session. The poster session is open to all interested scientists. Poster submission is possible through the registration link below.

Conference Program

- 8:30 Registration

- 9:00 Welcome and Introduction (Roland Dittmeyer, KIT)

- 9:10 Relevance of DAC for CDR (Maike Schmidt, ZSW)

- 9:30 Status of adsorption-based DAC (Patrick Behr, FZJ)

- 10:00 Status of absorption-based DAC (Lutong Lu, KIT)

- 10:30 Coffee break

- 11:00 Electrochemical DAC - A game changer? (Steffen Garbe, Phlair)

- 11:40 System integration of DAC (Thomas Schöb, FZJ; Roland Dittmeyer, KIT)

- 12:10 Lunch break

- 13:00 Presentation of DACStorE technology and service offers
(DACStorE consortium)

- 14:00 Poster session, networking, and opportunity for a site visit at IMVT (R&D
on electrochemical DAC and on the integration of DAC in the built
environment)

-16:00  Panel discussion – On the way to implementing DAC (Maike Schmidt,
 ZSW; Bernd Reinsch, BOSCH; Steffen Garbe, Phlair; Christian Moser, Worley; Jörg Spitzner, DACMA GmbH)

- 17:00 Closing remarks