Created in a lab, a half pound of this can capture as much carbon dioxide as a tree. That's 44 lbs of CO2 a year.
The material is called a covalent organic framework. It's a three dimensional particle that sucks up carbon dioxide from ambient air.
The hexagonal channels bind carbon dioxide (blue and orange balls) to the particle. The channels are full of polyamines that do the work. Polyamines are organic compounds that contain more than two amino groups. They're found in all living cells.
The new material was created by chemists at the University of California at Berkeley. Once the carbon dioxide is absorbed into the material it can be stored, or used in industrial processes like carbonizing drinks.
The material is durable and can be used hundreds of times. Making it far superior to other materials in carbon capture.
Omar Yaghi
Omar Yaghi, one of the chemists said, "... it's a Quantum Leap ahead in terms of durability of the material."
It absorbs carbon dioxide in just two hours, and can be released by heating it up to 120F. This is a big improvement over other materials that require much higher temperatures.
That means that places that already produce heat, such as factories and power plants, could release the carbon dioxide and start the process all over again.
Yaghi says that his company, Atoko, can ramp up production to make to make multi-ton quantities in less than a year.
Zihuo Zhou
Zihou Zhou a Berkeley student, says, "Currently this CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is more than 420 parts per million, but that will increase to 500 and 520 before we develop flue gas capture. So if we want to decrease the concentration and go back to 400 or 300 parts per million, we have to use direct air capture."
Flue gas capture is capturing it right at the source, like smokestacks.
"Trapping CO2 from the air is a very challenging problem....you need a material that has high carbon dioxide capacity, that's highly selective, water stable, oxidatively stable, recyclable," Zhou said.
The problem before with materials was that they required a great deal of heat to release the carbon dioxide. They also didn't have the ability to be reused so many times.
I'm wondering if they will come up with a short name for it, like Capcarb, Carbcap, or Organicap. Something catchy.
The current solution for carbon dioxide is storing it in geological formations underground. There are sites that could be reused like old oil and gas fields, but all of this was energy intensive to capture and then to store. This material solves a number of problems. If necessary, it could be stored above ground with no problems.
What isn't covered in the articles is how much it's going to cost to produce the material in the first place. But, I don't think they would even be talking about this material if it wasn't cost-effective. As Prof. Yaghi said, he's planning to start making the material right away.
It's encouraging to find successful work in the field of carbon capture. If we could just keep countries from using fossil fuels for electricity generation and vehicle propulsion we can probably stop, if not reverse, global warming.
One of the biggest problems is the use of coal, and China's building two coal fired power plants a week. As the chemists said, flue capture isn't there yet. The other is that you have government officials, like Donald Trump, who want to increase the use of fossil fuels and reduce the use of renewable energy, solar energy, and wind energy. This is working against the advances that are being made in carbon capture.
Who wins the battle depends on us fighting tooth and nail against the polluters out for a quick buck. Let's be thankful that there are many conscientious scientists trying to solve these problems.
