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This topic is available for NewMars members who may wish to document examples of ways to capture CO2.
There are a ** lot ** of methods already in use.
This topic is inspired by a report of Yet Another CO2 capture method.
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This post is reserved for an index to posts that may be contributed by NewMars members over time.
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This post is about research at U C Berkeley in the field of carbon capture.
The method uses a solid material (instead of a liquid) to capture CO2 from the air.
According to the report, the method in study is more efficient than other methods.
https://www.fastcompany.com/91220305/7- … wtab-en-us
11-01-2024
IMPACT
7 ounces of this yellow powder can capture as much CO2 as a treeA new material developed at UC Berkeley could help bring down the cost of capturing carbon dioxide from the air.
7 ounces of this yellow powder can capture as much CO2 as a tree[Source Photo: Zihui Zhou/UC Berkeley]
BY Adele Peters
3 minute readEarlier this year, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, filled a device with bright-yellow powder, connected it to a tube, and stuck the tube through the wall of a lab. Over the next 20 days, they used the material to pull CO2 from the outdoor air. Then they extracted the CO2 from the powder, repeating the process 100 times.
The material traps greenhouse gas inside billions of tiny pores; just 7 ounces of it can capture around 44 pounds of CO2 in a year, roughly as much as a large tree. Because the material is energy-efficient to use and unusually durable, it could help significantly cut the cost of direct air capture plants that capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The challenge is huge. CO2 levels in the atmosphere hit a record high this year, helping drive extreme weather, from heat waves to hurricanes. Even if all new emissions stopped now, there would still be hundreds of billions of tons of old emissions in the atmosphere that need to be removed to help stabilize the climate. Sucking CO2 out of the air is as necessary as decarbonizing the economy. But the direct air capture tech in use now is too expensive to be viable at a large scale.
Early generations of direct air capture tech used a liquid to capture CO2, but the process used large amounts of energy (and the liquids themselves were toxic, posing a challenge for disposal). Some companies now use solid materials, which partially reduces energy use, but those materials don’t last long enough.
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UC Berkeley graduate student Zihui Zhou with a 100-milligram test sample of COF-999; the sample was placed in the analyzer behind him to measure carbon dioxide adsorption from an air mixture similar to that of ambient air. [Photo: Robert Sanders/UC Berkeley]One key way the new material can cut costs: It can be used repeatedly without degrading. “When you have a good material and you’re cycling for a long time, that means the whole process becomes cheaper,” says Omar Yaghi, the chemistry professor at UC Berkeley who led the development of the material, called COF-999. (COF stands for “covalent organic framework,” an extra-strong chemical structure that Yaghi’s lab developed.)
The material could potentially capture CO2 and release it for storage over tens of thousands of cycles before it needs to be replaced.
In existing direct air capture facilities, the materials that capture CO2 can get damaged by humidity, so companies need to use more energy to dry out air before it’s pulled through filters to catch CO2. The new material doesn’t have that problem. It also uses far less energy when the CO2 is released for storage. The material releases CO2 when it’s heated to only around 140 degrees Fahrenheit, versus 250 degrees in other systems.
The lower temperature “opens the door for utilizing waste heat, or even low-grade ambient sources of energy,” says Samer Taha, CEO of Atoco, the spin-off company commercializing the Berkeley research.
[Image: courtesy Atoco]Currently, direct air capture can cost as much as $600 to $1,000 per ton of captured CO2. The industry is aiming for $100 per ton, which Taha says is feasible, noting, “Once we scale this, the energy efficiency that we can get from the technology will allow us to meet that $100 target, or even beat it.”
The UC Berkeley scientists are continuing to develop the material, which has the potential to capture even more CO2 in its pores. Atoco’s engineers, meanwhile, are tweaking it for use in industry so it can be dropped into existing direct air capture facilities. The company is in talks with some industry players who could begin testing the material in the coming months. Atoco plans to scale up to full commercial production in two years.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adele Peters is a senior writer at Fast Company who focuses on solutions to climate change and other global challenges, interviewing leaders from Al Gore and Bill Gates to emerging climate tech entrepreneurs like Mary Yap.. She contributed to the bestselling book Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century and a new book from Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies called State of Housing Design 2023 More
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