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Creativity Meets Innovation: A Method For Carbon Capture And Storage | |
| Radhika Laghate |
The structures use a salt—guanidinium sulphate—that mimics the activity of methane hydrate, which is difficult to recreate in the lab and requires refrigeration, making the approach energy intensive.
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A team of international researchers has developed a promising method for carbon capture and storage.
The research is led by Prof. Cafer T. Yavuz of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Prof. Bo Liu from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), and Prof. Qiang Xu of the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), and has successfully created lattice-like structures called clathrates that trap carbon dioxide (CO2) molecules.
The structures use a salt—guanidinium sulphate—that mimics the activity of methane hydrate, which is difficult to recreate in the lab and requires refrigeration, making the approach energy intensive.
The clathrate structure captures CO2 without water or nitrogen interference and opens a promising avenue for future carbon capture and storage technologies through rapid CO2 solidification. It allows CO2 to be carried as a solid powder, yielding a remarkably high volume per weight capacity, making this method the least energy-intensive and with tremendous potential for real-life applications.
Developing Sustainable Solutions
The breakthrough could have a significant impact on the fight against climate change by enabling energy-efficient carbon capture and storage. The team discovered a rare example of a clathrate that is stable and non-corrosive at ambient temperature and pressure, a highly desirable feature compared with ethanol, amine, ammonia, and other solutions that are commonly used in carbon capture. The salt-based clathrate structure utilises low-energy physisorption processes, capturing CO2 molecules without forming chemical bonds that require energy to break them down, driving up the cost of the CO2 capture operation.
The research team is optimistic that their findings will lead to further improvements in CO2 capture in terms of stability, recyclability, sorption capacity, selectivity, and lowering the regeneration energy penalty and cost. The research was carried out at the Southern University of Science and Technology, the University of Science and Technology of China, and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. The research findings have been published in the journal Cell Reports in Physical Science.