Techno-economic assessment of electricity-based graphene production from atmospheric carbon dioxide as a potential negative emission option

To achieve the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement, defossilising the chemical industry and scaling up negative CO 2 emissions are crucial. As conventional graphene production methods remain carbon-emissive across their value chains, electricity-based routes using atmospheric CO 2 as the carbon source shift the research focus towards fully defossilising the synthesis and processing stages while enhancing negative emissions. Two main graphene production routes are addressed in this study, namely the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) focused on production of high-quality layered graphene and electron beam plasma methane (EBPM) pyrolysis focused on production of bulk graphene, enabling a production of electricity-based graphene (e-graphene). Graphene produced via the CVD method at 89.5 €/kgGraphene in 2050, can be sold at a minimum of 98.4 €/kgGraphene, to yield a 9.7 €/kgGraphene profit, though the CO 2 removal cost seems unattractive at 24,402 €/tCO 2 by 2050. In contrast, EBPM pyrolysis offers a lower production cost of 1.35 €/kgGraphene and carbon removal cost of 369 €/tCO 2 , achieving a 9.2 €/kgGraphene minimum selling price, and 8.6 €/kgGraphene profit by 2050. Both routes could expand graphene commercialisation with high carbon content, targeting a total negative emission potential of 2.57 GtCO 2 /a by 2050. However, with an energy consumption of 80.3 kWh el /kgGraphene for CVD and only 47.9 kWh el /kgGraphene for EBPM pyrolysis, the EBPM pyrolysis route demonstrates greater energy efficiency and economic viability compared to the CVD route.