Carbon Management

Applying scientific expertise to reduce emissions and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

Quick facts

  • Our carbon management research focuses on technologies to prevent emissions, remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and recycle it into products.
  • Expertise in materials science and engineering allows us to understand material properties and design optimal materials and devices for carbon management applications.
  • We are exploring ways to improve the development process for scalable and cost-effective carbon management technologies.
Expertise in simulations and optimization allows LLNL researchers to develop multiphysics, multiscale models for carbon management applications. Illustrated here is an electrode assembly used to convert carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide.

Carbon management focuses on addressing carbon dioxide emissions and reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through capture, storage, and conversion techniques. At LLNL, our materials scientists and engineers work at the forefront of designing technologies, materials, and processes that cross-cut multiple areas of carbon management, including:

  • Converting carbon dioxide into useful products like chemicals and fuels
  • Preventing carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere
  • Removing carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere

Our researchers are involved across the spectrum of research and development activities, from fundamental science to design, development, and scale-up to implementation.

We leverage onsite expertise in a variety of areas—materials science, adsorption and reaction phenomena, multiphysics and multiscale modeling, chemical engineering, and advanced manufacturing—to improve technology performance and readiness in this area.

Our research supports LLNL’s climate and energy security mission.

Research focus areas

Our research activities concentrate on four main areas:

cross cutting research icon

Cross-cutting research

Our carbon management work crosscuts other work in degradation science. In this area, we rely on a combination of advanced quantum simulations and experimental materials synthesis and characterization to:

  • Study the degradation mechanisms of soft matter, catalysts, and reactors used for capturing and converting carbon dioxide
  • Apply fundamental insights to co-design materials and systems with improved lifetime and performance

Our work demonstrates how subtle chemical changes in materials can make materials last longer, offering potential cost savings for carbon capture technologies.