Oct
20
A New Crystal Captures Carbon Dioxide
October 20, 2015 | Leave a Comment
Stockholm University scientists have created crystals with micropores that capture carbon dioxide much more efficiently than previously known materials, even in the presence of water. The new mater is sure to cheer up the global warming crowd while the rest of us are pleased to see another resource to harvest CO2 .
Osamu Terasaki and Peter Oleynikov with a model of the new crystal. Image Credit: Stockholm University. Click image for the largest view.
One way to mitigate climate change or simply harvest an elusive raw material could be to capture CO2 from the air. So far this has been difficult, since the presence of water prevents the adsorption of CO2. Complete dehydration is a costly process. Scientists have now created a stable and recyclable material, where the micropores within the crystal have different adsorption sites for carbon dioxide and water.
Osamu Terasaki, Professor at the Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry at Stockholm University said, “As far as I know this is the first material that captures CO2 in an efficient way in the presence of humidity. In other cases there is competition between water and carbon dioxide and water usually wins. This material adsorbs both, but the CO2 uptake is enormous.”
The new material is called SGU-29, named after Sogang University in Korea, and is the result of international cooperation. It is a copper silicate crystal. The material could be used for capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and especially to clean emissions.
Terasaki explained, “CO2 is always produced with moisture, and now we can capture CO2 from humid gases. Combined with other systems that are being developed, the waste carbon can be used for new valuable compounds. People are working very hard and I think we will be able to do this within five years. The most difficult part is to capture carbon dioxide, and we have a solution for that now.”
CO2 is a useful precursor for simple things like dry ice and for making complex carbon molecules. A harvest type of recovery has so far been much more difficult than simple capture from a combustion process or extraction from natural gas. These routes drive the global warming folks a bit daffy. If a atmospheric harvest could source CO2 less expensively it would be happy thing and useful for all.
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