Propaganda ALERT:
BBC reports:
A new way of sucking carbon dioxide from the air and storing it in the sea has been outlined by scientists.
The authors say that this novel approach captures CO2 from the atmosphere up to three times more efficiently than current methods.
The warming gas can be transformed into bicarbonate of soda and stored safely and cheaply in seawater.
The new method could speed up the deployment of carbon removal technology, experts say.
While the world has struggled to limit and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide in recent decades, several companies have instead focussed on developing technology to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
Climeworks in Switzerland is perhaps the best known. Over the past ten years it has developed machines to suck in the air from the atmosphere that filter and trap the carbon dioxide molecules.
At a plant in Iceland the captured CO2 is injected deep underground where it is permanently turned into stone.
The company has recently started selling a certified carbon removal service to large corporate clients including Microsoft, Spotify and Stripe.
However, one big problem for most current approaches to direct air capture is cost.
CO2, although a powerful warming agent, is relatively diluted in the atmosphere at around 400 parts per million (ppm) in air.
So big machines that require large amounts of energy are needed to both absorb and discharge the CO2.
This new approach, using off-the-shelf resins and other chemicals, promises far greater efficiency and lower cost, say the scientists involved.
The research team have borrowed an approach used for applications in water, and “tweaked” existing materials to remove CO2 from the air.
In tests, the new hybrid absorbing material was able to take in three times as much CO2 as existing substances.
“To my knowledge, there is no absorbing material which even at 100,000 ppm, shows the capacity we get it in direct air capture of 400 ppm,” said lead author Prof Arup SenGupta from Lehigh University in the US.
“This simple ability to capture CO2 at a high quantity, in a small volume of material, is a unique aspect of our work.”
Unity News Network (UNN) Staff Writer | To find out more details about our staff, please head to the About Us section on our website.
