The Role of Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) Technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Achieving Net-Zero Carbon Footprint: Advances, Implementation Challenges, and Future Perspectives

Carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary anthropogenic greenhouse gas, drives significant and potentially irreversible impacts on ecosystems, biodiversity, and human health. Achieving the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to well below 2 °C, ideally 1.5 °C, requires rapid and substantial global emission reductions. While recent decades have seen advances in clean energy technologies, carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) remain essential for deep decarbonization. Despite proven technical readiness, large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) deployment has lagged initial targets. This review evaluates CCS technologies and their contributions to net-zero objectives, with emphasis on sector-specific applications. We found that, in the iron and steel industry, post-combustion CCS and oxy-combustion demonstrate potential to achieve the highest CO2 capture efficiencies, whereas cement decarbonization is best supported by oxy-fuel combustion, calcium looping, and emerging direct capture methods. For petrochemical and refining operations, oxy-combustion, post-combustion, and chemical looping offer effective process integration and energy efficiency gains. Direct air capture (DAC) stands out for its siting flexibility, low land-use conflict, and ability to remove atmospheric CO2, but it’s hindered by high costs (~$100–1000/t CO2). Conversely, post-combustion capture is more cost-effective (~$47–76/t CO2) and compatible with existing infrastructure. CCUS could deliver ~8% of required emission reductions for net-zero by 2050, equivalent to ~6 Gt CO2 annually. Scaling deployment will require overcoming challenges through material innovations aided by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, improving capture efficiency, integrating CCS with renewable hybrid systems, and establishing strong, coordinated policy frameworks.