Forecasting, capturing and activation of carbon-dioxide (CO$_2$): Integration of Time Series Analysis, Machine Learning, and Material Design

TL;DR

This paper combines time series analysis, machine learning, and material science to forecast CO2 emissions and propose advanced materials for CO2 capture, offering insights for policy and climate mitigation.

Contribution

It integrates LSTM-based forecasting of emissions with the identification of novel materials for efficient CO2 capture, bridging data analysis and material design.

Findings

LSTM models achieve high prediction accuracy with R^2 up to 0.995.

Principal component analysis identifies key emission sectors.

Scandium and boron/aluminium thin films outperform graphene in CO2 capture.

Abstract

This study provides a comprehensive time series analysis of daily industry-specific, country-wise CO$_2$ emissions from January 2019 to February 2023. The research focuses on the Power, Industry, Ground Transport, Domestic Aviation, and International Aviation sectors in European countries (EU27 & UK, Italy, Germany, Spain) and India, utilizing near-real-time activity data from the Carbon Monitor research initiative. To identify regular emission patterns, the data from the year 2020 is excluded due to the disruptive effects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The study then performs a principal component analysis (PCA) to determine the key contributors to CO$_2$ emissions. The analysis reveals that the Power, Industry, and Ground Transport sectors account for a significant portion of the variance in the dataset. A 7-day moving averaged dataset is employed for further analysis to facilitate robust predictions. This dataset captures both short-term and long-term trends and enhances the quality of the data for prediction purposes. The study utilizes Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) models on the 7-day moving averaged dataset to effectively predict emissions and provide insights for policy decisions, mitigation strategies, and climate change efforts. During the training phase, the stability and convergence of the LSTM models are ensured, which guarantees their reliability in the testing phase. The evaluation of the loss function indicates this reliability. The model achieves high efficiency, as demonstrated by $R^2$ values ranging from 0.8242 to 0.995 for various countries and sectors. Furthermore, there is a proposal for utilizing scandium and boron/aluminium-based thin films as exceptionally efficient materials for capturing CO$_2$ (with a binding energy range from -3.0 to -3.5 eV). These materials are shown to surpass the affinity of graphene and boron nitride sheets in this regard.