New material for CO2 removal

[Endy0816]

 

On a US Navy submarine, every breath you inhale has been repeatedly exhaled from the mouths of about 120 other people. This isn’t as suffocating, or gross, as it sounds, because submarines have ventilation systems that take the CO2 out of the air, and recirculate it with chemically catalyzed oxygen.

I take that back, the air is gross, because the chemical used to remove CO2 smells like old diesel mixed with a dash of sulphur, and it permeates everything on board. This chemical, called amine, is known by every submariner (I was one for 3 years), as well as every submariner’s wife, husband, or anyone else who encounters that sailor’s laundry. However, a new CO2-capturing nanomaterial could bring an end to this most notorious of submarine smells (trust me, there are others).

This is how the CO2-binding molecules coat the sand grain’s pores. Look at ‘em there, sucking up all that CO2!

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Unlike amine, which is a liquid, the new material looks like sand. In fact, it is sand, except it is covered with tiny pores, each filled with molecules that selectively pull CO2 out of the airstream. Together, sand grain and molecule are called Self Assembled Monolayers on Mesoporous Supports, or SAMMS. The pores create nooks and crannies that let even a small amount of the material soak up an incredible amount of CO2—a teaspoon of the material has slightly less surface area than a football field. And it’s reversible. “With a slight amount of heat, you can also open that molecule back up and release the CO2, making it possible to use the same material over and over again,” said Ken Rappe, an engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory who worked on SAMMS.

 

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/nano-sub-co2-scrub/

 

 

I wish we had this back when I was still onboard a sub. Amine has to be one of the most noxious substances in existence. Ideally we would have a means of splitting off the oxygen from the CO2, but this is at least a step in the right direction.

[hoola]

too bad it releases the CO2 back into the air if heated, that would complicate it being used as a sequestering device on power plants and part of the catalytic converter on car engines...