Trend watch: Carbon capture materials (sorbents, membranes) in 2026 — signals, winners, and red flags

The cost of capturing a tonne of CO2 from ambient air fell below $400 for the first time in 2025, down from over $600 just three years earlier, and next-generation sorbent and membrane materials are on track to push that figure below $200 by the end of the decade. For executives evaluating carbon capture investments, 2026 marks a pivotal year: the materials science underpinning direct air capture (DAC) and industrial point-source capture is transitioning from laboratory curiosity to industrial procurement reality, reshaping the economics of the entire carbon removal value chain.

Why It Matters

Carbon capture is not a single technology but a materials problem. The sorbent or membrane that selectively binds CO2 from a gas stream determines the energy penalty, capital intensity, operating cost, and scalability of every capture system. Traditional amine scrubbing, which has dominated industrial carbon capture for decades, consumes 2.5 to 4.0 GJ of thermal energy per tonne of CO2 captured, representing 60% to 80% of total operating costs. Any material that reduces this energy penalty by even 20% translates into billions of dollars in savings across the projected gigatonne-scale capture deployments needed by mid-century.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius requires removing 6 to 10 gigatonnes of CO2 annually by 2050. Current global capture capacity stands at roughly 50 million tonnes per year, overwhelmingly from point-source capture at natural gas processing and ethanol plants. Closing that gap demands not incremental improvements to existing amine systems but fundamentally new capture materials that can operate at lower temperatures, withstand thousands of adsorption-desorption cycles, and be manufactured at commodity scale.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has committed over $3.5 billion to DAC hub development through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, with the first two hubs (Occidental's STRATOS in Texas and Battelle's South Texas DAC Hub) breaking ground in 2024 and 2025. The EU Innovation Fund has allocated more than EUR 1.8 billion to carbon capture projects since 2020. This public capital is catalyzing private investment and creating a demand signal for advanced sorbents and membranes that did not exist five years ago.

Signals to Watch

Solid Sorbents Displace Liquid Amines in DAC

Climeworks, the Swiss DAC pioneer, operates its Mammoth plant in Iceland using solid amine-functionalized sorbent filters that capture CO2 at ambient temperature and release it when heated to 80 to 100 degrees Celsius. This temperature swing adsorption (TSA) approach consumes roughly 1.5 to 2.0 GJ per tonne of CO2, a 40% to 50% reduction compared to conventional liquid amine scrubbing. Global Thermostat and Carbon Engineering (now part of Occidental) have pursued variations on solid sorbent and liquid solvent approaches, but the trend across the industry is decisively toward solid contactors. Watch for announcements of second-generation sorbent formulations that extend cycle life beyond 10,000 adsorption-desorption cycles, which is the threshold where sorbent replacement costs fall below $10 per tonne of CO2 captured.

Metal-Organic Frameworks Move from Lab to Pilot Scale

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) represent the most promising class of designer sorbents for CO2 capture. These crystalline materials feature tunable pore sizes, surface chemistries, and adsorption capacities that can be engineered at the molecular level. UC Berkeley researchers demonstrated diamine-appended MOFs that capture CO2 with working capacities exceeding 3 mmol/g, roughly double the capacity of commercial amine sorbents, at regeneration temperatures of just 60 to 80 degrees Celsius. Mosaic Materials (a spinout from UC Berkeley) and NuMat Technologies are leading the commercialization effort, with pilot-scale MOF production reaching multi-tonne quantities in 2025. The critical signal in 2026 is whether any MOF-based capture system demonstrates 5,000 or more cycles without significant capacity degradation under real flue gas conditions containing water, SOx, and NOx.

Membrane Systems Target Industrial Point-Source Capture

Membrane-based CO2 separation has advanced rapidly, with next-generation polymeric and mixed-matrix membranes achieving CO2/N2 selectivities above 50 and CO2 permeabilities exceeding 1,000 Barrers, surpassing the Robeson upper bound that constrained prior membrane performance. MTR (Membrane Technology and Research) has deployed its Polaris membrane in a 20 tonne-per-day pilot at a coal-fired power plant, demonstrating capture costs 30% below conventional amine systems. Air Liquide and Evonik are developing facilitated transport membranes for natural gas sweetening and hydrogen purification that separate CO2 as a co-benefit. Track whether any membrane system achieves sustained capture rates above 90% at costs below $40 per tonne from concentrated industrial sources, which would make membrane capture competitive with geological avoidance strategies.

Electrochemical and Moisture-Swing Approaches Gain Traction

Electrochemical CO2 capture, which uses electrical potential rather than thermal energy to bind and release CO2, is emerging as a potentially transformative approach. Verdox, an MIT spinout backed by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, has demonstrated electrochemical swing adsorption using quinone-based electrodes that capture and release CO2 at room temperature with energy consumption below 1 GJ per tonne. Separately, Arizona State University's Center for Negative Carbon Emissions has developed moisture-swing sorbents based on ion exchange resins that absorb CO2 when dry and release it when exposed to humidity, requiring no direct thermal or electrical energy input. These early-stage approaches could bypass the thermodynamic constraints that limit temperature-swing systems, but both require significant engineering development before commercial deployment.

Winners and Red Flags

Winners

Solid sorbent manufacturers with demonstrated cycle durability are positioned to supply the growing pipeline of DAC projects. Companies like Climeworks, Svante (which provides solid sorbent contactors for industrial capture), and emerging MOF producers that can demonstrate 10,000-plus cycle stability will command premium pricing in a supply-constrained market. The DOE's target of reducing DAC costs to $100 per tonne by 2030 effectively guarantees demand for any sorbent material that enables that price point.

Membrane technology companies targeting high-concentration CO2 streams will find immediate market opportunities in cement, steel, and chemical manufacturing where CO2 concentrations of 10% to 30% make membrane separation highly efficient. MTR, Air Liquide, and Evonik have existing membrane manufacturing infrastructure that can be scaled to meet industrial capture demand without the greenfield factory investments that sorbent producers face.

Advanced materials companies with scalable synthesis processes for MOFs, functionalized silicas, and structured adsorbents will benefit from the sector's growth regardless of which specific capture architecture wins. BASF, which already manufactures MOFs at industrial scale for gas storage applications, and specialty chemical companies with expertise in surface functionalization are well positioned to pivot toward capture materials.

Red Flags

Sorbent developers claiming sub-$100 per tonne DAC costs without operational data should be scrutinized carefully. The gap between laboratory adsorption measurements and real-world capture system performance typically inflates costs by a factor of two to five. Sorbent degradation from moisture, trace contaminants, and mechanical attrition in fluidized bed or structured contactor systems remains the primary source of cost overruns in deployed capture plants.

Companies relying exclusively on conventional aqueous amine systems for new capacity risk being stranded by the cost curve. While 30% monoethanolamine (MEA) scrubbing remains the most commercially proven capture technology, its energy penalty of 3.5 to 4.0 GJ per tonne and the corrosion, solvent degradation, and waste management challenges it presents make it increasingly uncompetitive against solid sorbent and membrane alternatives for greenfield installations.

MOF startups without clear pathways to sub-$50 per kilogram sorbent production costs face commercialization barriers. Current MOF synthesis costs range from $100 to $500 per kilogram at pilot scale, compared to $5 to $15 per kilogram for commercial zeolites and activated carbons. Until MOF manufacturing reaches commodity pricing, their superior performance characteristics cannot translate into lower overall capture costs.

Sector-Specific KPI Benchmarks

Sector	KPI	Laggard	Average	Leader	Notes
DAC	Capture cost ($/tonne CO2)	>$600	$350-500	<$300	Solid sorbent TSA systems leading
DAC	Sorbent cycle life (cycles)	<3,000	5,000-8,000	>10,000	Critical for operating cost
Point Source	Capture rate (%)	<85%	90-93%	>95%	Regulatory minimum typically 90%
Point Source	Energy penalty (GJ/tonne CO2)	>3.5	2.5-3.0	<1.5	Membranes and advanced solvents
Membranes	CO2/N2 selectivity	<30	40-60	>80	Mixed-matrix designs improving
MOFs	Working capacity (mmol CO2/g)	<1.5	2.0-2.5	>3.0	Diamine-appended MOFs leading

What's Working

Climeworks' modular solid sorbent architecture is proving scalable. The company's Mammoth plant in Iceland, which began operations in 2024, uses stacked modular collector units that can be manufactured in a factory and assembled on site. Each unit contains a proprietary amine-on-cellulose sorbent that captures CO2 through temperature swing adsorption powered by geothermal energy. The modular approach reduces construction timelines and enables iterative sorbent upgrades without replacing entire plants. Climeworks has secured over $1 billion in advance purchase agreements from Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, and Shopify, validating commercial demand.

Svante's solid sorbent rotary contactors are achieving industrial-scale capture. The Canadian company's VeloxoTherm process uses a rapidly rotating structured adsorbent contactor to capture CO2 from cement and hydrogen production flue gases with 95% capture rates and significantly lower energy consumption than amine scrubbing. Svante's partnership with Lafarge Holcim on a commercial-scale cement plant capture project in British Columbia represents one of the most advanced industrial point-source deployments using solid sorbents.

Government procurement programs are de-risking early deployments. The DOE's Carbon Negative Shot initiative, which targets $100 per tonne DAC costs, has funded over 20 R&D projects developing novel sorbents and membranes. The 45Q tax credit, enhanced to $180 per tonne for DAC-captured CO2 permanently stored, provides a revenue floor that makes even current-generation sorbent systems economically viable in favorable locations.

What Isn't Working

Sorbent degradation in real-world conditions exceeds laboratory predictions. Most sorbent performance data is generated using clean, dry gas streams in controlled laboratory settings. In actual flue gas and ambient air environments, water vapor, sulfur compounds, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter accelerate sorbent degradation. Climeworks has acknowledged that its first-generation sorbents required replacement more frequently than initial models predicted, driving operating costs higher than planned.

Membrane systems struggle with dilute CO2 concentrations. While membranes perform well at CO2 concentrations above 10%, their efficiency drops sharply at ambient atmospheric concentrations of roughly 420 parts per million. This limits membrane technology primarily to industrial point-source applications and excludes it from the DAC market, where the largest long-term demand and highest per-tonne prices exist.

Scale-up of advanced sorbent manufacturing remains a bottleneck. The transition from producing kilograms of experimental sorbent in a laboratory to manufacturing thousands of tonnes annually for commercial capture plants requires solving complex chemical engineering challenges around batch consistency, quality control, and cost reduction. Several MOF and functionalized amine sorbent companies have encountered 12 to 24 month delays in scaling production, pushing back deployment timelines for projects that depend on next-generation materials.

Key Players

Established Leaders

• Climeworks operates the world's largest DAC plants using proprietary solid amine sorbents and has secured over $1 billion in carbon removal offtake agreements from corporate buyers.
• Svante provides solid sorbent-based capture systems for industrial emitters, with commercial deployments in cement and hydrogen production across North America.
• MTR (Membrane Technology and Research) has deployed its Polaris membrane system at multiple pilot and demonstration scales for post-combustion CO2 capture.
• Air Liquide manufactures and deploys membrane separation systems for gas processing, with increasing focus on CO2 capture applications.

Emerging Challengers

• Mosaic Materials is commercializing UC Berkeley's diamine-appended MOF technology for DAC and industrial capture, targeting superior working capacity and lower regeneration energy.
• Verdox is developing electrochemical swing adsorption technology that uses electrical potential rather than heat to capture and release CO2.
• CarbonCapture Inc. has designed modular DAC systems using commercially available sorbents and is developing its Project Bison facility in Wyoming targeting 5 million tonnes per year.
• Heirloom Carbon uses a mineral-based approach, accelerating the natural carbonation of calcium oxide to capture CO2, with its first commercial plant operating in Tracy, California.

Key Investors and Funders

• U.S. Department of Energy has committed over $3.5 billion for DAC hubs and billions more through ARPA-E and the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management for sorbent and membrane R&D.
• Breakthrough Energy Ventures has backed Verdox, CarbonCapture Inc., and other novel capture material companies.
• Occidental Petroleum acquired Carbon Engineering for $1.1 billion and is building the STRATOS DAC facility in Texas, creating integrated demand for advanced sorbent supply.

Action Checklist

• Assess your organization's carbon removal procurement needs against the available sorbent and membrane technology options, distinguishing between point-source capture (where membranes and advanced solvents are competitive today) and DAC (where solid sorbents lead)
• Request detailed sorbent degradation and cycle life data from capture technology vendors under conditions matching your actual flue gas or ambient air composition, not idealized laboratory conditions
• Evaluate at least two competing capture material approaches (for example, solid amine sorbents versus MOFs versus membranes) for any planned deployment to avoid technology lock-in as the field evolves rapidly
• Secure advance purchase agreements for carbon removal credits from DAC operators using next-generation sorbents to lock in pricing below $400 per tonne before demand from compliance markets drives prices higher
• Monitor DOE and EU Innovation Fund announcements for sorbent and membrane R&D breakthroughs that could shift cost curves, particularly multi-cycle durability demonstrations exceeding 10,000 cycles
• Engage chemical and materials suppliers (BASF, Evonik, specialty sorbent manufacturers) to understand lead times and pricing trajectories for commercial-scale sorbent procurement
• Include sorbent replacement costs and degradation rates in total cost of ownership models for any carbon capture investment, as these operating expenses often exceed initial capital costs over the project lifetime

FAQ

Q: What is the difference between sorbents and membranes for carbon capture? A: Sorbents are solid or liquid materials that chemically or physically bind CO2 from a gas stream, then release it when heated, depressurized, or electrically stimulated. Membranes are thin barrier materials that selectively allow CO2 to pass through while blocking other gases. Sorbents work well at low CO2 concentrations (including ambient air for DAC), while membranes perform best at higher concentrations found in industrial flue gases.

Q: When will DAC costs fall below $200 per tonne? A: Most credible projections place sub-$200 DAC costs in the 2028 to 2032 timeframe, contingent on next-generation sorbents achieving working capacities above 2.5 mmol/g, cycle lives exceeding 10,000 cycles, and regeneration energies below 1.5 GJ per tonne. The DOE's Carbon Negative Shot targets $100 per tonne, but this likely requires a second or third generation of sorbent materials beyond what is currently in pilot testing.

Q: Are MOFs ready for commercial deployment in carbon capture? A: MOFs have demonstrated superior CO2 adsorption performance in laboratory settings, with working capacities roughly double those of conventional amine sorbents. However, commercial readiness depends on solving three challenges: reducing synthesis costs from $100 to $500 per kilogram to below $50 per kilogram, demonstrating long-term stability under real flue gas conditions, and scaling manufacturing from pilot quantities to thousands of tonnes annually. Expect first commercial MOF-based capture deployments by 2028 to 2029.

Q: How does the 45Q tax credit affect capture material economics? A: The enhanced 45Q credit of $180 per tonne for DAC with permanent geological storage and $85 per tonne for point-source capture fundamentally changes the economics of sorbent and membrane technology investments. At $180 per tonne, even current-generation sorbent systems with capture costs of $300 to $400 per tonne become viable when combined with voluntary carbon credit sales. This dual revenue stream is driving the current wave of DAC project development and, in turn, creating demand for advanced capture materials.

Sources

• International Energy Agency. (2025). "CCUS Projects Database and Policy Tracker." https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tools/ccus-projects-explorer
• U.S. Department of Energy. (2025). "Carbon Negative Shot: Targets and Progress Report." https://www.energy.gov/fecm/carbon-negative-shot
• Climeworks. (2025). "Mammoth Plant Operational Update and Sorbent Performance Data." https://climeworks.com/plant-mammoth
• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2019). "Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration: A Research Agenda." The National Academies Press.
• Siegelman, R. L. et al. (2021). "Porous materials for carbon dioxide separations." Nature Materials, 20(8), 1060-1072.
• McQueen, N. et al. (2021). "A review of direct air capture (DAC): scaling up commercial technologies and innovating for the future." Progress in Energy, 3(3), 032001.
• Merkel, T. C. et al. (2023). "Pilot Testing of a Membrane System for Post-Combustion CO2 Capture." MTR Technical Report.
• European Commission. (2025). "EU Innovation Fund: Carbon Capture and Storage Projects Portfolio." https://climate.ec.europa.eu/eu-action/eu-funding-climate-action/innovation-fund_en