… Simple and inexpensive process to make a material for CO2 adsorption

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.unist.ac.kr/board/view.sko?boardId=Notice&boardSid=5037&menuCd=AB07002001000&contentsSid=8297&orderBy=register_dt&startPage=1&dataSid=1803241

[font face=Serif][font size=5]An Innovative material for the Green Earth: Simple and inexpensive process to make a material for CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] adsorption[/font]

Eunhee Song | 2013/06/17

[font size=3] Ulsan, S. Korea, June 17, 2013 - Researchers from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), S. Korea, developed a novel, simple method to synthesize hierarchically nanoporous frameworks of nanocrystalline metal oxides such as magnesia and ceria by the thermal conversion of well-designed metal-organic frameworks (MOFs).

The novel material developed by the UNIST research team has exceptionally high CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] adsorption capacity which could pave the way to save the Earth from CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] pollution.

Nanoporous materials consist of organic or inorganic frameworks with a regular, porous structure. Because of their uniform pore sizes they have the property of letting only certain substances pass through, while blocking others. Nanoporous metal oxide materials are ubiquitous in materials science because of their numerous potential applications in various areas, including adsorption, catalysis, energy conversion and storage, optoelectronics, and drug delivery. While synthetic strategies for the preparation of siliceous nanoporous materials are well-established, non-siliceous metal oxide-based nanoporous materials still present challenges.

A description of the new research was published (Web) on May 7 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. (Title: Nanoporous Metal Oxides with Tunable and Nanocrystalline Frameworks via Conversion of Metal-Organic Frameworks) This article will be also highlighted in the Editor’s Choice of the journal Science.

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http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ja401869h

[Squinch]

1. Oh, please, let it work!

[LongTomH]

2. The danger is that this will be promoted as an alternative to reducing carbon output!

Some 'think tanks' funded in part, by big oil/big coal have promoted various geo-engineering schemes as an alternative to reducing our output of greenhouse gases.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. Halting carbon output entirely (which won't happen) will not be enough

Currently, there is effectively no carbon capture, and the rate of carbon emissions is increasing.

Do you really think that if there were carbon capture technology available that the situation would be made worse!?

[LongTomH]

6. No, I'm just concerned that geoengineering - like this concept - will be marketed as..........

.....an alternative to making the drastic reductions in CO2 output that we need to make. If people are convinced that they do not need to reduce their carbon footprint; the situation in the long term could - repeat could be made worse if carbon capture is overwhelmed by increased emissions.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. But, as I said

At this point, with no carbon capture, people are apparently not concerned enough to cut emissions.

So… really, how much worse will having a workable system make things?

The fact of the matter is, drastic cuts in CO2 emissions will not be sufficient. Eliminating all CO2 emissions will not be sufficient.

We need to actively lower atmospheric concentrations of CO2.

[Jim Lane]

3. I doubt it would be cost-effective on any kind of scale.

If the material absorbs carbon dioxide well but just stores it, then, presumably, there's a point at which it gets saturated. Then you have to take it out and put in a new filter. Now you have the old filter that has the carbon in it.

So you nave to manufacture this high-tech material, deploy it, and then deal with the resulting solid waste issue -- are we to envision huge landfills for used filters?

Maybe this would be useful in some specialized situations, like the space station, but my uninformed guess is that it couldn't possibly make a noticeable dent in overall atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.

[daleanime]

4. It would have to be done as some kind of harvest...

with every thing being reused later.

[Jim Lane]

7. Yes, and reusing the stored CO2 would require that you input energy

With an outside source of energy, you could break the CO2 into carbon and oxygen. This is what plants do in photosynthesis, using the Sun's energy.

But if you had that outside source of energy, you could just use it instead to replace current CO2-generating energy production, such as burning fossil fuels or biomass.