Dr. Bo Wang from Prof. Omar Yaghi's research group

Greenwire posted 6/30/09 | 2 comments

New Material Could Vastly Improve Carbon Capture

To capture the carbon dioxide generated by coal plants, chemical companies like Dow Chemical Co. and energy giants like Alstom SA have been betting big on liquid solvents like amine, a corrosive derivative of ammonia that has a thirst for binding with CO2.

Problem is, once the two are bound, they never want to part.

In an attempt to circumvent the huge energy demands needed to separate amines from CO2, which can take up to 25 percent of the energy generated by a coal plant, scientists -- many funded by the Department of Energy -- are developing a new generation of porous solids that can trap CO2 and then, almost as easily, let it go. [more]