Direct air capture (DAC) is a carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technology that separates and concentrates CO2 from ambient air, producing a CO2-rich stream capable of either geological storage or utilization as a process stream in applications such as enhanced oil recovery or urea production.

While preliminary research is being conducted to evaluate various processes, the use of liquid solvents and solid sorbents for DAC are the most mature pathways to date. This separation is enabled by a two-part process which first concentrates atmospheric CO2 using either a liquid solvent or solid sorbent and then subsequently selectively recovers the captured CO2 from the saturated media to produce a CO2-rich effluent.