System and method for carbon dioxide capture and sequestration

This patent covers a method for removing and concentrating carbon dioxide directly from ambient air — what the field calls direct air capture (DAC). Claim 1 ties together several concrete limitations: (1) mixing ambient air with a minor proportion of a CO₂-containing effluent gas to raise the inlet CO₂ concentration; (2) directing the resulting CO₂-laden air through a capture structure containing a sorbent held on the surfaces of a porous solid mass, where CO₂ adsorbs or releasably binds to the sorbent; (3) directing process heat at the loaded structure to desorb a more concentrated CO₂ stream and regenerate the sorbent; and (4) cycling a further air flow through the regenerated structure to repeat capture. The abstract specifies the thermal regeneration is done with co-generated, substantially saturated steam at a relatively low temperature (≤ ~130 °C), which is the energetic distinguishing feature — low-grade heat rather than high-temperature regeneration.

The patent names a single inventor and assignee, Peter Eisenberger, and was granted in 2013. The filing is part of a tightly related cluster of Eisenberger DAC patents (see US-8163066-B2, US-9227153-B2, US-9028592-B2 below), reflecting one continuous body of work rather than scattered filings. Its family of 38 members across 10 countries is large and signals aggressive international prosecution — consistent with an inventor seeking to protect a core process across major jurisdictions. It carries 38 forward citations, a solid figure for a 2013 grant in this space, indicating it has been treated as relevant prior art by subsequent DAC filers.

Where this patent stands: This is best read as an anchor filing in the steam-regenerated, solid-sorbent DAC subfield, not a niche refinement. Eisenberger is well known as a co-founder of Global Thermostat, and this patent (with its siblings) underpins that company's commercial DAC approach centered on low-temperature steam regeneration of amine-functionalized monolith sorbents. The distinctive "admix effluent gas with ambient air" limitation and the ≤130 °C steam regeneration mark it as a process-design claim aimed at energy efficiency rather than a materials claim. Relative to the field's main players, it sits alongside the early DAC pioneers (Kilimanjaro/Carbon Sink, Climeworks) as foundational rather than derivative work.

The surrounding space is small but extraordinarily concentrated around direct air capture chemistry. Carbon Capture & Storage (Y02C) appears at 844.5× the corpus baseline and Separation & Filtration (B01D) at 77.8×, with Combustion Residue Treatment (F23J) at 287.4× — these multipliers confirm a tightly clustered, single-theme field. By citation impact the TOP_ASSIGNEES list is led by Clean Energy Systems, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering, Praxair, and ExxonMobil Upstream Research, but these reflect adjacent point-source capture and gas-separation work. Climeworks AG dominates the nearest patents to this one — it is the assignee on patents [5], [6], [7], [8], [13], [14], [19], and [20] in the relevance list — yet it does not appear in the top-10 citation chart, because much of its work is recent and lightly cited. This is the clearest signal that the citation-weighted ranking under-rewards the most directly on-point competitor.

The closest related patents:

• US-8163066-B2 — Carbon dioxide capture/regeneration structures and techniques (Peter Eisenberger · 51 citations · 31-member family). The most directly related sibling, covering the capture/regeneration structure itself; together with the subject patent it forms the core Eisenberger/Global Thermostat process portfolio.
• US-9028592-B2 — System and method for carbon dioxide capture from relatively high concentration CO₂ mixtures (Peter Eisenberger · 12 citations · 20-member family). Extends the same method to higher-concentration sources, the natural companion to the effluent-admixing limitation in the subject claim.
• US-10279306-B2 — Steam assisted vacuum desorption process for CO₂ capture (Climeworks AG · 12 citations · 7-member family). Directly parallel — steam-driven regeneration of a sorbent for DAC — from the leading commercial competitor.
• US-2023173427-A1 — Atmospheric steam desorption for direct air capture (Climeworks AG · 0 citations · 4-member family). A 2023 filing squarely on the same steam-regeneration mechanism; strategic IP the citation-weighted score under-rewards given its recency and on-point subject matter.

Also relevant are the early air-extraction filings US-8083836-B2 and US-8088197-B2 (Kilimanjaro Energy, 46 and 51 citations respectively), which are foundational to the broader DAC concept rather than the steam-regeneration variant. The filing trend shows sustained activity through 2022–2024 (4, 6, and 2 filings), so this remains an active rather than settled field.