KAIST announced on the 25th of August that Professor Dong-Yeun Koh’s research team from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, in collaboration with Professor T. Alan Hatton’s group at MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering, has developed the world’s first ultra-efficient e-DAC (Electrified Direct Air Capture) technology based on conductive silver nanofibers.
High energy cost has been the biggest obstacle for conventional DAC technologies so the study is regarded as a breakthrough demonstrating real commercialisation potential. Overseas patent applications have already been filed, and because it can be easily linked with renewable energy such as solar and wind power, the technology is being highlighted as a “game changer” for accelerating the transition to carbon-neutral processes.
Conventional DAC processes required high-temperature steam (over 100?) in the regeneration stage, where absorbed or adsorbed carbon dioxide is separated again. This process consumes about 70% of the total energy, making energy efficiency crucial, and requires complex heat-exchange systems, which makes cost reduction difficult. The joint research team, led by KAIST, solved this problem with “fibers that heat themselves electrically,” adopting Joule heating, a method that generates heat by directly passing electricity through fibers, similar to an electric blanket. By heating only where needed without an external heat source, energy loss was drastically reduced.
This technology can rapidly heat fibers to 110? within 80 seconds with only 3V—the energy level of smartphone charging. This shortens adsorption–desorption cycles dramatically even in low-power environments, while reducing unnecessary heat loss by about 20% compared to existing technologies.
The core of the research was not just making conductive fibers, but achieving a breathable conductive coating that achieves both electrical conductivity and gas diffusion.
The team uniformly coated porous fiber surfaces with a composite of silver nanowires and nanoparticles, forming a layer about 3 micrometers (µm) thick—much thinner than a human hair. This 3D continuous porous structure allowed excellent electrical conductivity while securing pathways for CO2 molecules to move smoothly into the fibers, enabling uniform, rapid heating and efficient CO2 capture simultaneously.
Furthermore, when multiple fibers were modularized and connected in parallel, the total resistance dropped below 1 ohm (Ω), proving scalability to large-scale systems. The team succeeded in recovering over 95% high-purity CO2 under real atmospheric conditions.
The biggest innovation of this technology is that it runs solely on electricity, making it very easy to integrate with renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. It perfectly matches the needs of global companies that have declared RE100 and seek carbon-neutral process transitions.
Professor Dong-Yeun Koh of KAIST, said, “Direct Air Capture (DAC) is not just a technology for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, but a key means of achieving ‘negative emissions’ by purifying the air itself. The conductive fiber-based DAC technology we developed can be applied not only to industrial sites but also to urban systems, significantly contributing to Korea’s leap as a leading nation in future DAC technologies.”
This study was led by Young Hun Lee (PhD, 2023 graduate of KAIST; currently at MIT Department of Chemical Engineering) and co-first-authored by Jung Hun Lee and Hwajoo Joo (MIT, Department of Chemical Engineering). The results were published online on August 1, 2025, in Advanced Materials, one of the world’s leading journals in materials science, and in recognition of its excellence, the work was also selected for the Front Inside Cover.