Did Capturing Carbon from the Air Just Get Easier? (berkeley.edu) 24
"We passed Berkeley air — just outdoor air — into the material to see how it would perform," says U.C. Berkeley chemistry professor Omar Yaghi, "and it was beautiful.
"It cleaned the air entirely of CO2," Yaghi says in an announcement from the university. "Everything."
SFGate calls it "a discovery that could help potentially mitigate the effects of climate change..." Yaghi's lab has worked on carbon capture since the 1990s and began work on these crystalline structures in 2005. The innovative substance has lots of tiny holes, making it "great for storing gases or liquids, much like a sponge holds water," Yaghi said... While it could take one to two years for the powder to be usable in large-scale applications, Yaghi co-founded Atoco, an Irvine company, to commercialize his research and expand it beyond just carbon capture and storage.
"Capturing carbon from the air just got easier," says the headline on the anouncement from the university, which explains why this technology is crucial: [T]oday's carbon capture technologies work well only for concentrated sources of carbon, such as power plant exhaust. The same methods cannot efficiently capture carbon dioxide from ambient air, where concentrations are hundreds of times lower than in flue gases. Yet direct air capture, or DAC, is being counted on to reverse the rise of CO2 levels, which have reached 426 parts per million, 50% higher than levels before the Industrial Revolution. Without it, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we won't reach humanity's goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degreesC (2.7 degreesF) above preexisting global averages.
A new type of absorbing material developed by chemists at the University of California, Berkeley, could help get the world to negative emissions... According to Yaghi, the new material could be substituted easily into carbon capture systems already deployed or being piloted to remove CO2 from refinery emissions and capture atmospheric CO2 for storage underground. UC Berkeley graduate student Zihui Zhou, the paper's first author, said that a mere 200 grams of the material, a bit less than half a pound, can take up as much CO2 in a year — 20 kilograms (44 pounds) — as a tree.
Their research was published this week in the journal Nature.
And it's also interesting that they're using AI, according to the university's announcement: Yaghi is optimistic that artificial intelligence can help speed up the design of even better COFs and MOFs for carbon capture or other purposes, specifically by identifying the chemical conditions required to synthesize their crystalline structures. He is scientific director of a research center at UC Berkeley, the Bakar Institute of Digital Materials for the Planet (BIDMaP), which employs AI to develop cost-efficient, easily deployable versions of MOFs and COFs to help limit and address the impacts of climate change. "We're very, very excited about blending AI with the chemistry that we've been doing," he said.
Another potential use could be for harvesting water from desert air for drinking water, Yaghi told SFGate. But he seems very focused specifically on carbon capture.
"Another thing is that we need a strong determination among officials and industries to make carbon capture a high priority. Things have to change, but I believe that direct carbon capture from air is very doable."
"It cleaned the air entirely of CO2," Yaghi says in an announcement from the university. "Everything."
SFGate calls it "a discovery that could help potentially mitigate the effects of climate change..." Yaghi's lab has worked on carbon capture since the 1990s and began work on these crystalline structures in 2005. The innovative substance has lots of tiny holes, making it "great for storing gases or liquids, much like a sponge holds water," Yaghi said... While it could take one to two years for the powder to be usable in large-scale applications, Yaghi co-founded Atoco, an Irvine company, to commercialize his research and expand it beyond just carbon capture and storage.
"Capturing carbon from the air just got easier," says the headline on the anouncement from the university, which explains why this technology is crucial: [T]oday's carbon capture technologies work well only for concentrated sources of carbon, such as power plant exhaust. The same methods cannot efficiently capture carbon dioxide from ambient air, where concentrations are hundreds of times lower than in flue gases. Yet direct air capture, or DAC, is being counted on to reverse the rise of CO2 levels, which have reached 426 parts per million, 50% higher than levels before the Industrial Revolution. Without it, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we won't reach humanity's goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degreesC (2.7 degreesF) above preexisting global averages.
A new type of absorbing material developed by chemists at the University of California, Berkeley, could help get the world to negative emissions... According to Yaghi, the new material could be substituted easily into carbon capture systems already deployed or being piloted to remove CO2 from refinery emissions and capture atmospheric CO2 for storage underground. UC Berkeley graduate student Zihui Zhou, the paper's first author, said that a mere 200 grams of the material, a bit less than half a pound, can take up as much CO2 in a year — 20 kilograms (44 pounds) — as a tree.
Their research was published this week in the journal Nature.
And it's also interesting that they're using AI, according to the university's announcement: Yaghi is optimistic that artificial intelligence can help speed up the design of even better COFs and MOFs for carbon capture or other purposes, specifically by identifying the chemical conditions required to synthesize their crystalline structures. He is scientific director of a research center at UC Berkeley, the Bakar Institute of Digital Materials for the Planet (BIDMaP), which employs AI to develop cost-efficient, easily deployable versions of MOFs and COFs to help limit and address the impacts of climate change. "We're very, very excited about blending AI with the chemistry that we've been doing," he said.
Another potential use could be for harvesting water from desert air for drinking water, Yaghi told SFGate. But he seems very focused specifically on carbon capture.
"Another thing is that we need a strong determination among officials and industries to make carbon capture a high priority. Things have to change, but I believe that direct carbon capture from air is very doable."
Sounds like BS to me (Score:2)
"Zihui Zhou, the paper's first author, said that a mere 200 grams of the material, a bit less than half a pound, can take up as much CO2 in a year — 20 kilograms (44 pounds) — as a tree."
And what does it do with it?
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And how much CO2 is generated producing that 200 grams?
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To answer the second question first: you heat it to 60C and it releases the CO2 -- which you then have to do something with.
The first question: I suspect that the 20Kg of CO2 is the total that is captured & released over many cycles in a year.
The two questions that I would like answered are:
1) how much energy does it take to run a capture/release cycle? Hopefully generating this energy produces much less CO2 than is captured by this process.
2) what can/do you do with the CO2 captured by this stuff ? How
Nuclear sub or spacecraft (Score:2)
To answer the second question first: you heat it to 60C and it releases the CO2 -- which you then have to do something with.
Release it into the ocean or space.
how much energy does it take to run a capture/release cycle?
On a nuclear sub that isn't really a problem. On a spacecraft, I'm sure it can be made to work - solar is pretty good in space.
My only concern.. (Score:3)
Is that if we deploy this, people may think it's okay to keep polluting instead of continuing to cut back and reach net zero.
It's still worth doing but this is only part of the equation and it has to be coupled with continued advancements in numerous technologies.
Still pretty cool progress in this area and hopefully they can expand it to water capture in the desert as mentioned at the end of the summary.
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I agree, but it's a worthwhile risk. The lag between a reduction in CO2 output and a reduction in atmospheric CO2 is too long to wait, and the lag between a drop in atmospheric CO2 and global temperature is even longer.
It's taken us over 100 years to get to this point; I don't think we want to wait another hundred to get things back to where they were - and no matter what it appears we're going to keep on pumping out CO2 like our lives depend on it anyway.
And you know what? If we can deploy this solution
Re: My only concern.. (Score:1)
We will never be able to capture and store carbon at the same rate as it gets produced.
The industrial and economic incentive to produce carbon vastly exceeds the ability of our governments to raise funds to capture it.
The idea that it would be easier and cheaper to capture carbon after we produce it is mind bogglingly stupid.
Re: My only concern.. (Score:2)
That's why you need government to fix the failures markets can create. For example car emission control systems. They aren't what the market would create left to its own devices.
Re: My only concern.. (Score:1)
On its own, the market would still have us using leaded fuel.
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>The idea that it would be easier and cheaper to capture carbon after we produce it is mind bogglingly stupid.
I disagree. If there's a material that sponges up CO2 from the air and all you have to do is leave it lying about (the atmosphere mixes itself so the CO2 essentially comes to you, though only in small amounts at a time)... so long as the manufacturing, deployment, and storing of such material does not cause the release of more CO2 than it sequesters, then it's a good idea.
It doesn't necessarily
Re: My only concern.. (Score:1)
So you think that if we tax, let's say, $1 per kg of CO2, that we'll be able to capture carbon for less than $1 per kg?
Strictly speaking that might not be a violation of the laws of thermodynamics, but I find it to be pretty close to magical thinking that the economics would work out that way.
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... worthwhile risk. The lag ... appears we're going to keep on pumping out CO2 like our lives depend on it anyway. ... [then] what's so bad about CO2 emissions? sequestering it as fast as we release it seems fine to me.
Link. [investopedia.com] (Oooh, look! Commas in the primary article!)
.. 11,397 ........ 5,057 ..... 2,830 ...1,652 ... 1,054
China
US
India
Russia
Japan
So: If numbers 2-5 completely use this completely, then we've cut CO2 pollution by half...with effectively nowhere left to go except Big C.
Half is great, but maybe we can talk to them after a successful demonstration and/or in production and see if they'll patriciate?
So this might help, but at all not solve the problem. Besides, it'll then suddenly be another
What's your goal? (Score:2)
Is that if we deploy this, people may think it's okay to keep polluting instead of continuing to cut back and reach net zero.
Quick question: what's your goal here?
Is it to force people to "cut back" on their standard of living? Or is it to solve the climate change problem?
Because if it's *not* to solve the climate change problem, then I don't want to hear about it.
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Is that if we deploy this, people may think it's okay to keep polluting instead of continuing to cut back and reach net zero.
Or it may be adapted so people don't need to pollute to run their existing polluting machines such as cars or burners. You may need to empty your carbon when filling up at a gas station. We may not have to get rid of the fireplace.
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We may not have to get rid of the fireplace.
If its wood burning we shouldn't need to get rid of it either way, it's carbon neutral already. Its not geologically sequestered carbon (petroleum), its just temporarily sequestered while the tree is alive, before its consumed and CO2 is release from bacterium, mold, termite farts or naturally occuring fires.
Tech can avoid compromising comforts (Score:2)
Is that if we deploy this, people may think it's okay to keep polluting instead of continuing to cut back and reach net zero.
What IF it is really good and we can reach net zero, or go a little negative to clean things up, without cutting back on our creature comforts? Can't the developing peoples of the world enjoy some creature comforts that energy provides?
That's where your carbon is coming from today, not so much US and EU. Which is why, globally, we are producing more CO2 than pre-covid. Further cuts in the US and EU are providing diminishing returns. Either the developing world makes sacrifices or there is no net zero. Or
This is a scam (Score:1)
It'll delay doing anything about climate change for another 10 or 20 years. The worst thing is it is technically possible to pull carbon out of the atmosphere and because of that left wingers being the dumbasses that they are will hem and haw over the viability of doing it and oil industry shills will throw out a few studies that we will spend hours and hours and hours po
Accepting science means accepting its solutions (Score:2)
It's a scam by the oil industry to make us think that there is a ready-made solution that doesn't involve using less of their product.
Or science and engineering will solve the oncoming Malthusian crisis, YET AGAIN.
Embracing science does not solely mean accepting the data of bad news, it also mean accepting the technical solutions that are emerging.
Plant a tree- on Venus. (Score:1)
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