Making buildings carbon sinks

Direct air capture of carbon dioxide is often associated to large filter machines piled one on top of another and moving large volumes of air. Large contactors are required due to the small concentration of carbon dioxide in the air and large daily production targets of these plants.

As air is pushed in the filter, carbon dioxide and moisture are trapped or adsorbed. When the filter is saturated with these compounds the machine is closed and regenerated via vacuum and heating to collect the CO2 and water. Moisture is condensed leaving pure CO2 for compression.

The concept

Soletair Power delivers solutions for capturing CO2 in air supplied to building ventilation. The same adsorption and regeneration principle is used in our system to capture carbon dioxide but the dimension is compact.

The captured CO2 is integrated to an electrolyser and synthesis unit where it gets converted to fuels or other hydrocarbons.

Our approach

Many factors govern the design of ventilation systems, Soletair Power’s ventilation-integrated CO2 capture system is designed to work within these established design requirements. The system is aimed to meet the ventilation speed typically in m3 sec-1 and the customers preferred indoor CO2 level measured as parts per million or ppm.

For a standard ventilation unit handling 3.3 m3 sec-1 our CO2 capture system will have a dimension of 3 m (L), 2 m (W) and 2 m (H) and can produce 47 kilograms of carbon dioxide per day. Due to the space limitation in HVAC room, the system’s piping, and dimension can also be modified to fit customer’s specification.

Below is an example of the visual outlook of our system installed in an HVAC room.  The system can be installed as turn-key solution or can be assembled on site. The latter is especially suited to building retrofit installation where access path to HVAC system can be limited.

The system has a modular design principle therefore it is easy to install multiple units if required.

The conversion of the CO2 to fuels or other hydrocarbons are done is a separate room in the building. Carbon dioxide from the CO2 capture system is piped to this room.