Direct Air Capture (DAC) technologies will be essential to achieving net‑zero CO₂ emissions by 2050, particularly to offset unavoidable residual emissions. Based on multiple case studies, key bottlenecks in current DAC technologies have been identified, and their implications for future technology development have been assessed. Critical challenges including the choice and durability of capture media, high energy demand, and air‑contactor design are expected to significantly narrow the range of economically viable DAC technologies by 2035, a timeframe in which a substantial increase in DAC industrialization is anticipated.

Against this backdrop, today’s most promising DAC concepts must undergo significant further development to reach technology readiness levels (TRLs) close to 9 by 2035. A central focus of this development is industrialization, as many DAC solutions currently deployed face scalability limitations that negatively impact economic performance at larger scales.

Furthermore, DAC technologies must demonstrate economic viability across a wide range of use cases and ambient conditions to enable broad market adoption. In response, insights from multiple DAC case studies have been structured and clustered to systematically evaluate different DAC technologies with regard to their economic potential, scalability, time to reach TRL 9, and ability to address the identified bottlenecks.