CO2 emissions: This method removes you with water and nanomaterials. (Photo: Freepik)
Evanston/Chicago – with a new technology by researchers of the Northwestern University CO2 can be removed from the air with low costs and the climate change ideally slow down. Instead of filters or liquids that contain amine whose regeneration is energy -intensive and expensive, water and inexpensive nanometer -sized materials such as activated carbon and aluminum oxide are sufficient for this method.
Moist and dry
The process is based on the fact that the moisture that surrounds the nanomaterials. If you are wet, suck CO2 so that it is caught in the fine pores. If they are dried, the climate checks and can be captured.
In order to remove it from the atmosphere forever, CO2 can be pressed in gaseous or liquefied into deep geological formations, in which it is petrified in the best case. It can also be used to produce fuels and heating materials, because then the combustion of fossil raw materials is superfluous, which releases additional CO2 into the atmosphere.
“You can rely on natural gradients of the air humidity, for example through a day-night cycle-at night the humidity is usually higher than during the day-or by using 2 air volumes, one of which is artificially moistened, while the natural air is very dry,” explains development manager Vinayak P. Dravid. Such circumstances can be found in desert areas, for example. Water can be extracted from the night air, for example through stored solar power.
Waste heat is sufficient
“The moisture fluctuation method enables CO2 binding with low humidity and the release with high humidity, which reduces or eliminated the energy costs for the regeneration of a sorption agent,” says Dravid’s colleague Benjamin Shindel.
The method is attractive because it enables CO2 removal practically anywhere and can use synergies, for example from industrial systems that generate inferior waste heat, which is otherwise not usable. The search for optimal materials continues. In addition to activated carbon and aluminum oxide, nanostructured graphite, carbon nanor tubes and flake graphite as well as metal oxide nanoparticles are also possible.
Source: www.pressetext.com
(PTE019/04.04.2025/11: 30)