Climate change concerns are accelerating the development of energy-efficient sorbents for direct air capture. Ionic liquids are promising candidates due to their tunable structures and compatibility with dielectric heating, offering opportunities to improve CO₂ recovery cycles and reduce overall cost and energy demand. Although their high viscosity limits large scale application, tailored molecular design provides pathways to overcome this challenge. In this research, a sustainable IL was synthesized using green amino acids and quaternary ammonium counterion. The developed IL when integrated with microwave heating enables CO₂ desorption at low temperature, achieving up to a 65% increase in CO2 recovery compared with conventional heating with significantly higher energy consumption. 

Mechanistic investigations reveal that microwave radiation modulates free energy barriers, thereby accelerating carbamate breakdown. The buffering capacity of amino sulfonic acids, together with the strong proton affinity of lysine, influences hydrogen coordination and dianion polarity, facilitating barrier crossing during microwave cycles. Furthermore, polar co-solvent concentration was found to play a crucial role in changing  dipole moment and polarizability, while also directing microwave specific effects through energy transfer to zwitterionic carbamates. These findings demonstrate that coupling IL design with microwave heating and solvent engineering can significantly enhance the efficiency of direct air capture systems. This approach provides new insights into the mechanistic pathways of CO₂ desorption and highlights a promising route toward scalable, low energy carbon capture technologies.