An international team of scientists is using porous, sponge-like materials that can trap carbon dioxide in their cavities while allowing other gases such as nitrogen to pass through.
The materials are made from sugar and low-cost alkali metal salts, so they would be inexpensive enough for large-scale deployment, and they could be particularly effective for limiting the environmental damage of coal-fired power plants.
The German Chemical Society publishes the paper in Angewandte Chemie. The collaboration was led by Phillip Milner, assistant professor of chemical and chemical biology at Cornell University.
Amine scrubbing is the leading method for carbon capture in chemistry for the last 100 years. Nitrogen is contained in amines, which are organic, ammonia-derived compounds. They are able to remove carbon dioxide from gas. Oxygen degrades them every time they are cycled, which means that more and more of the material would need to be produced, thus driving up the cost.
The lab has been experimenting with a different family of materials and designing them specifically for carbon dioxide capture, rather than trying to figure out how to overcome the oxidation problem in amines.
The project focuses on sponge-like materials with hydroxide sites. Baking soda traps the carbon dioxide when solutions of hydroxide salts reversibly react with it. The material needs to be heated up to 500 to 800 degrees Celsius, and not a cheap one, in order to regenerate the hydroxide salt.
Mary Zick found that she could create a sponge-like material by boiling cyclodextrins as a starter and then adding alkali metal salts to the water to create a sponge filled with carbon dioxide and other gases.
Coal emissions are still the top contributor to carbon-dioxide emissions in the world.
More information: Mary E. Zick et al, Carbon Dioxide Capture at Nucleophilic Hydroxide Sites in Oxidation‐Resistant Cyclodextrin‐Based Metal‐Organic Frameworks, Angewandte Chemie International Edition (2022). DOI: 10.1002/anie.202206718 Citation: Carbon capture takes sponge-like form with new cost-effective method (2022, May 23) retrieved 23 May 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-05-carbon-capture-sponge-like-cost-effective-method.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
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