Chemical engineers at EPFL have designed a material that can capture carbon dioxide from wet flue gasses better than current commercial materials.
Chemical engineers at EPFL have designed a material that can capture carbon dioxide from wet flue gasses better than current commercial materials. The work is published in Nature.
Generally speaking, “flue gas” refers to any gas coming out of a pipe, exhaust, chimney etc. as a product of combustion in a fireplace, oven, furnace, boiler, or steam generator. But the term is more commonly used to describe the exhaust vapors exiting the flues of factories and powerplants. Iconic though they may be, these flue gases contain significant amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2), which is a major greenhouse gas contributing to global warming.
One way to ameliorate the polluting impact of flue gases is to take the CO2 out of them and store it in geological formations or recycle it; there is, in fact, an enormous amount of research trying to find novel materials that can capture CO2 from these flue gasses.
A “sponge” that is not affected by water
Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are among the most promising of these materials, but most of these materials require drying the “wet” flue gas first, which is technically feasible but also very expensive – and thus less likely to be implemented commercially.
Read more at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Image: Chemical engineers at EPFL have designed a material that can capture carbon dioxide from wet flue gasses better than current commercial materials. (Credit: Luke Robus and Emmet Norris)
