New Technology Captures CO2 Safely & Permanently

Imagine taking the main culprit in global warming and converting it into safe and usable commercial products. It may sound too good to be true, but it will soon be a reality.

New cutting-edge technology that ‘captures’ polluting carbon dioxide and binds it permanently will soon be underway at a new research center at The University of Nottingham in the UK.

The Centre for Innovation in Carbon Capture and Storage (CICCS) has a principle mission to develop technologies that can trap and store greenhouse gases permanently, so that the emissions can never be released into the atmosphere.

One of the technologies that the Centre will work on uses a natural process in conjunction with silicate-based rocks such as serpentine, which is found in large enough quantities, and in the right places, to store all the CO2 produced by the combustion of the entire world’s known fossil fuel reserves.

The CO2 extracted from burning coal is put into a reactor with the rocks and through a chemical reaction. The serpentine binds the carbon dioxide to itself, ‘locking it in’ permanently. This reaction does occur in nature — only far more slowly, taking place over eons of time.

Once the process is fully developed, it is estimated that the locking of CO2 will take place within minutes.

The end product is a mineral such as magnesite, which can be used as aggregates for road-building or shaped into bricks for construction. Carbon dioxide makes up 40 per cent of its weight and it would take 1,500 times more space to store the same amount in gas form.

Compared to other proposed processes for carbon storage, such as burying carbon under the sea, once the CO2 is locked inside the rock by the CICCS process, it is contained for good and cannot go back to its previous state. This is of paramount importance as ensuring the permanent storage of the CO2 has been the most controversial issue in carbon storage.

As an added bonus, the end result is a commercial product. Fossil fuel power plants could utilize the new process by adding a reactor to their emissions treatment system, allowing CO2 to be turned into useful building materials. The Centre’s ultimate goal will be to sign collaborative agreements with power and construction companies to move forward with commercialization of the technology.

The processes developed by the Centre will also be attractive to oil producers, chemical manufacturers and other energy-intensive industries in the UK that have a role to play in helping the meet the 2050 target of 60% reduction below 1990 levels.

European nations have been front-runners in the attempt to counter-act global warming by encouraging green lifestyles and requiring corporate environmental responsibility. The US is the world’s biggest CO2 emitter per capita, with Australia and Canada as runner-ups.

This might be a short-term solution, but we need to get rid of the internal combustion engines, or at least, provide with a quick addition to these engines so they stop polluting so much.

This is where Aero2012 will be leading us, with modules that can be attached easily to cars and trucks first, then coming with a full scale replacement, so things can be implemented smoothly.

(Source: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/08/new-technology-.html)