Abstract
Excess carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their inevitable consequences continue to stimulate hard debate and awareness in both academic and public spaces, despite the widespread lack of understanding on what really is needed to capture and store the unwanted CO2. Of the entire carbon capture and storage (CCS) operation, capture is the most costly process, consisting of nearly 70% of the price tag. In this tutorial review, CO2 capture science and technology based on adsorbents are described and evaluated in the context of chemistry and methods, after briefly introducing the current status of CO2 emissions. An effective sorbent design is suggested, whereby six checkpoints are expected to be met: cost, capacity, selectivity, stability, recyclability, and fast kinetics.