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.


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.”


LBNL Masthead

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.”




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

Related
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/
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