University of Waterloo

Purpose

The ongoing race to carbon net-zero is a global effort to resolve the challenge of climate change. Carbon neutrality can be achieved by reducing emissions and removing the CO2 in industry exhaust as well as the atmosphere. Removing carbon in the atmosphere is called direct air carbon capture (DACC) and can be viewed as an emerging industry producing carbon credit. This project seeks to design a novel DACC system based on fibrous material. The alkaline solution is dispensed by fiber networks and reacts with and captures the CO2 in the atmosphere. Optimal design for such processes is prohibitively demanding for conventional methods, experimental or computational, due to the drastic scale difference (e.g., from alkaline droplets and liquid film of micrometers to meters long fibers and reacting chamber) in the system. Developing a universal framework combining artificial intelligence and physical laws within this project will facilitate faster optimal designs and scaling-up for future DACC system development.