Showing posts with label Carbon Dioxide. Show all posts

2010-07-12

Improved Carbon Capture in Crystalline Sponges

Crystal Compounds Used as Super-Efficient Carbon Storage Sponges

Carbon capture stands to reduce the impacts of climate change caused by industrial pollution — but the methods currently available for capturing carbon are expensive, complicated and too burdensome to be widely implemented. It turns out that an answer to this problem could be a family of complex crystals called metal-organic frameworks. Metal-organic frameworks are incredibly porous and have the highest internal surface area of any substance known to man — and it just so happens that they can be formulated for the sole purpose of capturing carbon.

Collected from: Crystal Compounds Used as Super-Efficient Carbon Storage Sponges | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

Carbon Cycle 2.0: Berend Smit: Carbon Capture

Collected from: YouTube - Carbon Cycle 2.0: Berend Smit: Carbon Capture

Could Crystals Sponge Up the Carbon?

Dr. Jeffrey Long, a chemist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is one researcher studying the carbon-capture potential of metal-organic frameworks.

“We think we can modify the surface so it will cause just the carbon dioxide to stick,” Dr. Long said in an interview. “It would be a sort of carbon-dioxide selective sponge.”

Collected from: Could Crystals Sponge Up the Carbon? - Green Blog - NYTimes.com

The search for improved carbon sponges picks up speed

The idea is to engineer this incredibly porous compound into a voracious sponge that gobbles up carbon dioxide.

And they’re going for speed. The scientists hope to discover this dream material in a breakneck three years, maybe sooner. To do this, they’ll create an automated system that simultaneously synthesizes hundreds of metal-organic frameworks, then screens the most promising candidates for further refinement.

“Our discovery process will be up to 100 times faster than current techniques,” says Long. “We need to quickly find next-generation materials that capture and release carbon without requiring a lot of energy.”

Collected from: The search for improved carbon sponges picks up speed « Berkeley Lab News Center

Collected from: YouTube - Hunt for improved carbon capture picks up speed

Sources

Crystal Compounds Used as Super-Efficient Carbon Storage Sponges | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World
http://inhabitat.com/2010/07/05/crystal-compounds-found-to-act-as-carbon-storage-sponges/
YouTube - Carbon Cycle 2.0: Berend Smit: Carbon Capture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D9P92H314s
Could Crystals Sponge Up the Carbon? - Green Blog - NYTimes.com
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/could-crystals-sponge-up-the-carbon/
The search for improved carbon sponges picks up speed « Berkeley Lab News Center
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2010/05/26/carbon-capture-search/
YouTube - Hunt for improved carbon capture picks up speed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k38lza_t6mw

Carbon capture and storage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage
Carbon dioxide removal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_removal
The search for improved carbon sponges picks up speed
http://www.physorg.com/news194193848.html
04.28.2009 - $30 million from DOE for carbon capture, sequestration
http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/04/28_efrc.shtml
News | Berkeley Research
http://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/2010/05/03/LBNLenergy_grant
A Research Center for Understanding How to Store CO2 Underground « Berkeley Lab News Center
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2009/04/28/efrc-co2/

2009-06-26

Synthetic Trees

Clipped from: Artificial Trees: Could They be Better Than the Real Thing? : TreeHugger

Artificial Trees: Could They be Better Than the Real Thing?

Living trees are one of nature’s best carbon capturers; planting them can help counteract the carbon emissions of everything from cars to planes (though they're just a small part of a bigger solution). But the artificial version created by Columbia University professor Klaus Lackner has been grabbing carbon 1,000 times more quickly than the rooted versions (and “several hundred times better,” according to Lackner, than windmills) for a total of 90,000 tons of carbon each year--even without sunlight.

Clipped from: Synthetic Tree Soaks Up Carbon 1000x Faster Than the Real Thing | Popular Science

Synthetic Tree Soaks Up Carbon 1000x Faster Than the Real Thing

Each synthetic plant promises to do the work of a thousand old-style wooden trees

Klaus Lackner, a professor at Columbia University who is developing the tree, met with U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu last month to talk about the concept. In an interview with CNN, Lackner said the synthetic tree is "several hundred times better at collecting CO₂" than windmill generators. Lackner says that for every 1,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide collected, the tree emits just 200 kilograms. This ratio is more than enough to warrant the relatively high cost of building the trees (about the same as a new automobile) or retrofitting coal plants.

Clipped from: 'Synthetic tree' claims to catch carbon in the air - CNN.com

/technology

'Synthetic tree' claims to catch carbon in the air

A conceptual design of how the "synthetic tree" might look should they ever reach the stage of production.

As the wind blows though plastic "leaves," the carbon is trapped in a chamber, compressed and stored as liquid carbon dioxide.
The technology is similar to that used to capture carbon from flue stacks at coal-fired power plants, but the difference is that the "synthetic tree" can catch carbon anytime, anywhere

Clipped from: Air Scrubber Can Soak Up One Ton of Carbon Dioxide Daily - GoodCleanTech

Air Scrubber Can Soak Up One Ton of Carbon Dioxide Daily

More than a year ago, Sir Richard Branson launched the Virgin Earth Challenge which promises to grant $25 million to anyone who can come up with the best method to capture significant amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide. While we've seen potential contenders before, a group of scientists from Columbia University in New York headed by Klaus Lackner, seems to be leading the pack.

Clipped from: GRT - Global Research Technologies: Carbon Dioxide Air Capture

Global Research Technologies, LLC

GRT is the global air-capture technology and intellectual property leader and is currently developing its ACCESS^TM air-capture system for commercialization.

Clipped from: BBC NEWS | Programmes | Artificial trees: A green solution?

Artificial trees: A green solution?

Carbon capture, in the form of "artificial trees", is one idea explored in the BBC Two documentary Five Ways To Save The World. But could these extraordinary machines help to mitigate our excessive burning of fossil fuels and its consequence, global warming?

Artificial trees mimic one of the greatest carbon capturers on earth

Professor Lackner estimates that every tree would remove 90,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year

Would people be happy to look at fields of artificial trees?

Carbon dioxide gas would be injected into the sea bed

Sources

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2008-02-21

Recycling of Greenhouse Gases

Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists are proposing a concept for removing carbon dioxide from the air and turning it back into gasoline.

clipped from www.nytimes.com

Scientists Would Turn Greenhouse Gas Into Gasoline

The idea is simple. Air would be blown over a liquid solution of potassium carbonate, which would absorb the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would then be extracted and subjected to chemical reactions that would turn it into fuel: methanol, gasoline or jet fuel.

This process could transform carbon dioxide from an unwanted, climate-changing pollutant into a vast resource for renewable fuels. The closed cycle — equal amounts of carbon dioxide emitted and removed — would mean that cars, trucks and airplanes using the synthetic fuels would no longer be contributing to global warming.

clipped from www.lanl.gov

Synthetic Fuel Concept to Steal CO2 From Air

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., February 12, 2008 --
Green Freedom™ for carbon-neutral, sulfur-free fuel and chemical production

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2007-12-21

Turning CO2 into Fuel

clipped from www.technologyreview.com

Turning Carbon Dioxide into Fuel

Researchers are harnessing solar energy to convert carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide, which can be used to make fuels.

Sun power: Putting the finishing touches on a giant solar collector, which researchers at National Laboratories will use to power a novel reactor capable of producing carbon monoxide from carbon dioxide. The carbon monoxide can then be used in the manufacture liquid fuels.
Credit: Randy Montoya

clipped from www.sandia.gov

Sandia researcher Rich Diver assembles a prototype device intended to chemically reenergize carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide, which ultimately could become the building block to synthesize a liquid combustible fuel. (Photo by Randy Montoya)

The Sandia research team calls this approach “Sunshine to Petrol” (S2P). “Liquid Solar Fuel” is the end product — the methanol, gasoline, or other liquid fuel made from water and the carbon monoxide produced using solar energy.

It's excellent work and, in principle, scientifically quite possible, says Christian Sattler, of the Institute of Technical Thermodynamics at the German Aerospace Center, in Cologne. "The question is, at what efficiency?" he says. "How much energy does it take to carry out this reduction? It may be more efficient to use the solar energy for direct power production."

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