Australian Researchers Set Record For Carbon Dioxide Capture (phys.org) 52
Researchers from Monash University and the CSIRO have set a record for carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) using technology that resembles a sponge filled with tiny magnets. Phys.Org reports: Using a Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) nanocomposite that can be regenerated with remarkable speed and low energy cost, researchers have developed sponge-like technology that can capture carbon dioxide from a number of sources, even directly from air. The magnetic sponge is used to remove carbon dioxide using the same techniques as induction cooktops using one-third of the energy than any other reported method.
In the study, published in Cell Reports Physical Science, researchers designed a unique adsorbent material called M-74 CPT@PTMSP that delivered a record low energy cost of just 1.29 MJ kg-1CO2 , 45 per cent below commercially deployed materials, and the best CCS efficiency recorded. MOFs are a class of compounds consisting of metal ions that form a crystalline material with the largest surface area of any material known. In fact, MOFs are so porous that they can fit the entire surface of a football field in a teaspoon. This technology makes it possible to store, separate, release or protect valuable commodities, enabling companies to develop high value products.
The stability of M-74 CPT@PTMSP was evaluated by estimating the amount of CO2 and H2O captured and released via the researchers' magnetic induction swing adsorption (MISA) process over 20 consecutive cycles. The regeneration energy calculated for M-74 CPT@PTMSP is the lowest reported for any solid porous adsorbent. At magnetic fields of 14 and 15 mT, the regeneration energy calculated for M-74 CPT was 1.29 and 1.44 MJ kg CO2-1.
In the study, published in Cell Reports Physical Science, researchers designed a unique adsorbent material called M-74 CPT@PTMSP that delivered a record low energy cost of just 1.29 MJ kg-1CO2 , 45 per cent below commercially deployed materials, and the best CCS efficiency recorded. MOFs are a class of compounds consisting of metal ions that form a crystalline material with the largest surface area of any material known. In fact, MOFs are so porous that they can fit the entire surface of a football field in a teaspoon. This technology makes it possible to store, separate, release or protect valuable commodities, enabling companies to develop high value products.
The stability of M-74 CPT@PTMSP was evaluated by estimating the amount of CO2 and H2O captured and released via the researchers' magnetic induction swing adsorption (MISA) process over 20 consecutive cycles. The regeneration energy calculated for M-74 CPT@PTMSP is the lowest reported for any solid porous adsorbent. At magnetic fields of 14 and 15 mT, the regeneration energy calculated for M-74 CPT was 1.29 and 1.44 MJ kg CO2-1.
This might actually be feasible (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This might actually be feasible (Score:5, Interesting)
I was thinking more "space station air scrubber" myself, (since the material seems to be intended to be reused many times).
Perhaps even "solid state gas harvesting" if/when Mr Musk finally gets Big Shiny Rocket working. (Assuming it can work at extremely low temperatures, and at highly rarefied levels of atmosphere.)
Not necessarily practical long term though (Score:3)
CO2 capture is all well and good, but in the long term it'll eventually escape one way or another. The only proper solution is to convert it to a different chemical substance - eg a carbonate - but unfortunately that currently uses use amounts of energy and materials. Perhaps one day when the whole world uses renewable energy for mining and chemical processing then it might make sense but right now, no.
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CO2 capture is all well and good, but in the long term it'll eventually escape one way or another.
CO2 has less mobility than methane. Methane is stable in geological formations for tens of millions of years.
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Methane doesn't dissolve in ground water.
Re:Not necessarily practical long term though (Score:5, Insightful)
What we need is some machine that sequesters carbon using solar energy. Even better, that machine could have the ability to self-repair, cost nothing and be installed anywhere.
In other words, trees - which humanity, stupid as it is, is busy felling as fast as it can.
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I think that's a bit simplistic. If you cut down a tree for timber, then that carbon remains sequestered. It's a matter of what you do with the space where the tree used to be, and it's also worth considering, that depending on tree type, they drop off a lot of biodegradable matter, which decomposes into other things, some are more potent greenhouse gasses than CO2.
Now don't quote me on this, but my understanding is that there reaches a point in the life of most trees where they tend to become neutral in te
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"some are more potent greenhouse gasses than CO2."
All biologically produced gases including methane break down in the atmosphere (usually due to oxidation and/or UV) and hence have relatively short half lives in it. CO2 OTOH has a half life of hundreds of years.
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Trees don’t sequester carbon in the long term. They used to and the result was coal oil and gas. But then life found a way ... to rot timber, releasing the carbon. You can still grow forests that will hold a certain amount of carbon but, once the trees are fully grown, you’ve held all the carbon you can for that area of land. After that, old trees dying counteract new trees growing. Wood harvested for things like building and paper almost all goes for relatively short-term uses and its carbon i
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Trees don't (because they die and rot), but forests do, because they always have living trees.
We could essentially solve much of the here-and-now crisis by stopping fossil fuel and reforesting the world - by blocking grazers and reintroducing predators. Once that is done, we have to look at actually sequestering carbon - that's going to be tough.... if you want to know why, google lignin.
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We could essentially solve much of the here-and-now crisis by stopping fossil fuel and reforesting the world
Of course, ditching fossil fuel would be doing 99% of the work.
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That works as long as you continuously expand forests beyond historic levels. Any tree that dies will decompose back into carbon dioxide eventually. On a long scale, it's carbon neutral not a carbon capture.
We doomed ourselves by pumping carbon out of the ground without a plan for pumping it back in. Forests won't be able to compensate for our current level of fossil fuel consumption. The issue is complex, for example a lot of CO2 dissolves in the seas, masking a lot of the problem, once they get closer to
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Trees have their own set of problems. Hence why we humans cut them down.
Sure we can build our homes, then plant tree on top of the roofs. Except the Roots on trees which are powerful enough to break rocks will 1 make our roofs heavy, and make them less weather efficient over time.
We often have property with grass that is trimmed, not only for esthetics. but because there are a lot of pests that live in the woods, that we would want to keep away from our homes.
When a tree falls, it is heavy and can damage a
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"When a tree falls, it is heavy and can damage a lot of property."
So prune it before can. You don't need to cut it down.
"If caught on fire, they can spread fire across a long range."
Sure, in the australian outback or maybe some other semi desert area like california. In temperate forests, really not so much. Though climate change may well revise that in the future.
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In other words, trees - which humanity, stupid as it is, is busy felling as fast as it can.
This isn't actually stupid. Trees don't just sit there sucking carbon and making it disappear through nuclear fusion. Trees do something with that carbon, specifically grow. Any part of the tree that falls is capable of releasing some carbon back into the atmosphere, not the least of which is all those leaves that fall off them.
Ideally you want to maximise carbon captured. The way to do that is to plant a new tree, a fast growing tree, wait for it to reach a certain maturity, cut it down, treat the wood so
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Removing C02 from the air isn't useful?
Australian Researchers Set Record For Carbon Dioxi (Score:2, Funny)
Australian Researchers Set Record For Carbon Dioxide Capture
I gather they stored it in nasty tasting yellow water under pressure in metal cannisters. They marked them with some X's to indicate the danger.
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Yeah, we drink a lot of it whenever we win a State of Origin match against NSW.
So, lots.
Non-functional Link to Published Study (Score:4, Interesting)
The non-functional link to the research paper is: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.x... [doi.org]
So AU comes up with a sponge-based solution... (Score:2)
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What's stopping them from doing their own research?
or just use trees (Score:4, Insightful)
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Or you can harvest them and make stuff out of the wood
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Wood products last only a very short time on average before their carbon is released again.
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Buried wood just rots down, releasing almost all of the carbon except in unusual circumstances. The formation of fossil fuels stopped almost completely once life worked out how to break down (rot) cellulose (wood).
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You know how trees weigh a lot? And they don't leave a giant crater in the soil? That's because they take nitrogen and mostly CO2 from the atmosphere and make it into wood and leaves. You can't really get much more efficient carbon capture than a "machine" that grows itself with no human interventions.
Why would you say that carbon capture can't get more efficient than trees? There is absolutely no research to support this.
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The point is that any CCS technology requires work/energy. Trees require zero work/energy, meaning the efficiency is essentially infinity. Which is impossible to beat. But at that point, efficiency perhaps isn't the best measure. But it makes a valid point.
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Trees require zero work/energy, meaning the efficiency is essentially infinity. Which is impossible to beat.
That is thermodynamically impossible. Trees *need* energy to do this - and they kind of suck at it. Photovoltaics plus industrial carbon capture does basically the same thing, but in a much smaller area for the same rate of capture - see my comment above.
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Trees have nothing to do with thermodynamics.
They work on the photo electric effect and proton transport.
(*facepalm*)
Hint: Thermodynamics is about steam machines (simplified).
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"Chemical reactions are determined by the laws of thermodynamics." [wikipedia.org]
Are you saying that sequestering CO2 from the air is not a chemical reaction?
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It is, and has nothing to do with thermodynamics, as that is not a chemical reaction :P but a set of core principles of physics for heat based engines, pressure and temperature and volume and such ... you know.
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If we talk about "thermodynamics" we usually refer to the 7 laws of physics.
If your text book author took a certain liberty, I never heard about that.
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The energy required to do this properly isn't zero. You have to cut the trees down and store them somewhere if you intend to sequester a significant amount of carbon. That takes energy, and logging trucks don't run on solar panels (yet). Moving a heavy log a significant distance is a classic example of Work, but you might be onto something if we ship them down hill.
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You can't really get much more efficient carbon capture than a "machine" that grows itself with no human interventions.
Trees have fairly limited CO2 absorption per unit of area. Even our very primitive solutions [carbonengineering.com] have orders of magnitude higher performance - one plant absorbing 500000 tonnes of CO2 per year is equivalent to 14000-200000 hectares of forest [fao.org], depending on the forest. But that plant will be at most a few hectares in size. The global excess CO2 production of 35 gigatonnes per year would therefore require 10000000-140000000 square kilometers of forest. For comparison, total dry land area of Earth is around 1490000
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The problem with those trees is they are frigging slow.
Re: But lets check some basic facts (Score:3)
So, what do you then do with it? (Score:2)
What is the total cost of creating it? (Score:2)
How much energy is used to create the MOFs? How much pollution, including carbon dioxide, is created during creation of the MOFs?
Perpetual motion machines (Score:1)
Dont work. It is far more energy efficient to not burn carbon that it is to burn carbon and then recapture it.
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However that's a flawed analysis. The process captures the CO2, it doesn't turn it back into hydrocarbons. The energy came from breaking apart the hydrocarbons. This process is storing the CO2 somewhere, it's not trying to put back together the original molecules. So it can in fact cost much less energy than the original burning released.