Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Energy Res.
Sec. Energy Efficiency
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenrg.2024.1443974
This article is part of the Research Topic Energy Management, Energy Efficiency Policies, and Energy System Studies View all 4 articles

Exploring Small-Scale Direct Air Capture in a Building Ventilation System: A Case Study in Linköping, Sweden

Provisionally accepted
  • Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Direct air capture (DAC) technologies have emerged as a promising solution to address climate change and meet global climate goals. However, despite the importance of DAC in designing carbon-negative buildings, there is a lack of research focusing on the energy and cost aspects in building ventilation systems. The objective of this research is to investigate the CO2 capture potential and economic viability of integrating small-scale DAC into a building ventilation system integrated within a gym space. A gym space located in the city of Linköping, Sweden, is used as the research object. Furthermore, the study investigates the CO2 capture potential across a portfolio of gym spaces corresponding to an area of 24,760 m 2 .The results show that the CO2 capture potential varies between 54 kg/day and 83 kg/day for the investigated gym space. Moreover, the total CO2 capture potential is between 588 ton CO2/year and 750 ton CO2/year for the portfolio of gym spaces. The results also demonstrate that regenerating the sorbent during non-operating hours is more energy-efficient and economically advantageous compared to performing four complete regeneration cycles during operating hours. Based on a sorbent capture potential of 0.2 mmol/g and 2.0 mmol/g, and a CO2 price of 1,000 SEK, the break-even price for energy is 0.25-0.53 SEK/kWh. Lastly, the research shows that, among the investigated cases, the only economically viable solution corresponds to sorbent capture potential 2.0 mmol/g and utilizing low-grade heat for the generation process, resulting in a total cost of 663 SEK/ton CO2.

    Keywords: Direct air capture, CO2 capture, Ventilation systems, climate-neutral buildings, Metabolic CO2

    Received: 04 Jun 2024; Accepted: 25 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Milic, Larsson Ståhl, Granli and Moshfegh. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Vlatko Milic, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.