Dan Conant
Scientists from the University of Bath will be working on capturing CO2 and recycling it into usable materials such as fuel thanks to funding provided by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). This is a massive undertaking of a project, but if all goes well then these scientists may end up helping to reduce the world’s leading greenhouse gas. This project has only begun, but the scientists already have a good idea of how they might go about capturing this CO2.
The scientsits are going to try to develop a porus material that would be in the chimneys of factories to help capture CO2. Porus materials are ideal because they absorb gas from the air easily. Once captured, the scientists will be experimenting with solar power to convert the CO2 into fuels and other products. Dr. David Fermin from Bristol College (a collaborator in this endeavor) helped to provide the science behind this project’s vision;“Currently, there are no large-scale technologies available for capturing and processing CO2 from air. The facts are that CO2 is rather diluted in the atmosphere and its chemical reactivity is very low. By combining clever material design with heterogeneous catalysis, electrocatalysis and biocatalysis, we aim at developing an effective carbon neutral technology.”
This project has a lot of potential for helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as it could be applied to factories and other large scale CO2 emission contributors. There is even hope that eventually this technology might be able to be applied to automobiles, but that is in the distant future.