Emerging materials for lowering atmospheric carbon

CO2 emissions from anthropogenic sources and the rate at which they increase could have deep global ramifications such as irreversible climate change and increased natural disasters. Because greater than 50% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions come from small, distributed sectors such as homes, offices, and transportation sources, most renewable energy systems and on-site carbon capture technologies for reducing future CO2 emissions cannot be effectively utilized. This problem might be mediated by considering novel materials and technologies for directly capturing/removing CO2 from air. However, compared to materials for capturing CO2 at on-site emission sources, materials for capturing CO2 directly from air must be more selective to CO2, and should operate and be stable at near ambient conditions. In this review article, we briefly summarize the recent developments in materials for capturing carbon dioxide directly from air. We discuss the challenges in this field and offer a perspective for developing the current state-of-art and also highlight the potential of a few recent discoveries in materials science that show potential for advanced application of air capture technology.