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The reduction of CO2 released in the atmosphere and its recovery are among the main instruments to counter climate change. The EU-funded CO2CAP project aims to make this process simpler, more efficient and sustainable, with a multidisciplinary approach based on nanotechnology, materials engineering and physico-chemical models. The mixing of two solutions with different concentrations releases energy, but this phenomenon has so far mainly been studied applied to salinity gradients. CO2CAP instead exploits the capacitive mixing of bio-derived ionic liquids during CO2 absorption to recover energy from CO2 capture and then release a pure CO2 stream for its subsequent valorisation. The basic idea is that this absorption results in a change in charge on the two electrodes facing the ionic liquid, thus recovering energy.