About this Research Topic
This Research Topic seeks to address the pivotal challenge of advancing CCUS technologies to facilitate effective carbon emissions reduction. The goal is to examine the current gaps and opportunities in CCUS, highlighting novel avenues for enhancing efficiency, scalability, and sustainability, with a specific focus on advanced engineering and biotechnological solutions.
These solutions are crucial for advancing our understanding of CCUS technologies, promoting their development, and mitigating deployment risks. They encompass a wide range of approaches, including process modifications and equipment design to reduce both capital investment and operational costs, the integration and optimization of systems to enhance energy management and economic outcomes, as well as planning strategies. Additionally, it involves activities such as laboratory, prototype, and pilot-scale demonstrations, alongside commercial-scale studies for rigorous technology evaluation, and more.
The scope of this Research Topic encompasses recent advances in CCS/CCU technologies with a focus on advanced engineering and biotechnological solutions. Authors are encouraged to delve into innovative capture methods, utilization pathways for captured CO2, and secure geological storage techniques. Themes include but are not limited to:
• Breakthroughs in CO2 capture technologies – Absorption, Membrane separation, Adsorption, Calcium looping, Algae-Based Carbon Capture, Microbial Electrosynthesis, Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), etc.
• Novel utilization strategies for captured CO2 - CO2 conversion into valuable products via chemical conversion, carbonate precipitation, concrete carbonation, mineralization, algae cultivation, microbial fermentation, harnessing biotechnological processes to convert captured CO2 into valuable products (including biofuels, chemicals, and materials. etc.)
• Developments in CO2 transportation – transportation methods (pipelines, vessels and ships, etc.), infrastructure planning, safety and risk mitigation, integration with utilization and storage.
• Sustainability and Environmental Impact - Evaluations of the environmental benefits, in terms of sustainability and carbon footprint (also via life cycle assessment, LCA), and potential drawbacks of innovative and biotechnological CCS/CCU approaches.
• Industry and Market Integration - Studies on the integration of innovative and biotechnological CCS/CCU into existing industrial processes, including energy production, agriculture, and manufacturing. Assessments of market trends and opportunities for commercialization.
We welcome Original Research articles, Reviews, and Brief Research Reports and other studies that present robust scientific insights, technological innovations, and practical applications. This Research Topic serves as a platform for interdisciplinary discussions, fostering collaboration among researchers, engineers, and experts in the field of CCUS to contribute to a sustainable and low-carbon future.
Keywords: CO2 capture, CO2 utilization, CO2 storage, emission reduction, sustainable solutions, climate change mitigation, engineering approach, biotechnological approach, life cycle assessment
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.