From the ‘CO2 must be assimilated’ department comes this press release from CSIRO. I have to wonder if this is a ‘spongeworthy’ project.
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CSIRO scientists have created a ‘solar sponge’ which captures and then releases carbon dioxide using the power of natural sunlight – as published today in scientific journal Angewandte Chemie.
The breakthrough presents a new way to recycle CO2 emissions using renewable energy. The ‘sponge’ which is made from a new smart material called a MOF – metal organic framework – adsorbs carbon dioxide, but when exposed to sunlight, instantaneously releases it.
Known as dynamic photo-switching, this capture-and-release method is extremely energy efficient and only requires UV light to trigger the release of CO2 after it has been captured from the mixture of exhaust gases.
“This is an exciting development for carbon capture because concentrated solar energy can be used instead of further coal-based energy to drive the process.”
Dr Matthew Hill, CSIRO research scientist
Dr Matthew Hill, who was awarded a 2012 Eureka Prize for his MOF research and led the CSIRO group conducting this research, said: “The capture and release process can be compared to soaking up water with a sponge and then wringing it out. When UV light hits the material its structure bends and twists and stored gas is released.”
“This is an exciting development for carbon capture because concentrated solar energy can be used instead of further coal-based energy to drive the process,” he added.
The traditional process for carbon dioxide capture has been to use liquid absorbers such as amines to remove flue gases at a coal-fired power station before they are released into the atmosphere. They are then heated to release the CO2 which is then stored and can be re-used. This process can consume as a much as 30 per cent of a power plant’s production capacity.
MOFs absorb as much as a litre of nitrogen gas in just one gram of material. This is possible because MOFs have the surface area of a football field in just one gram, meaning that gases can be soaked up like a sponge to all of the internal surfaces within.
In their paper titled ‘Dynamic Photo-Switching in Metal Organic Frameworks as a Route to Low Energy Carbon Dioxide Capture and Release’ CSIRO researchers show that when exposed to concentrated UV light the MOF sponge instantaneously releases up to 64 per cent of absorbed CO2.
Lead researcher and author of the paper, Richelle Lyndon, who is also a Monash University student, said: “The MOFs are impregnated with light-responsive azobenzene molecules which react to UV light and trigger the release of CO2. It is this reaction, and the material’s ability to bend and flex, which makes the material we have created so unique.”
Read more media releases in our Media section.
This work was funded by the Science and Industry Endowment Fund [external link].
Dynamic Photo-Switching in Metal–Organic Frameworks as a Route to Low-Energy Carbon Dioxide Capture and Release [external link], abstract in Angewandte Chemie.
“Steven Mosher says:
February 21, 2013 at 12:04 pm
“But lets be negative and poop all over anything that mentions global warming. go team!”
Once again, you add nothing useful to the discussion…just more drive-by snide remarks.
the CSIRO in Australia is another arm of our left wing communist GOV,T .we will be having a new GOV.T later this year and they will put the cleaners through them by by to the carbon tax and the greens
Doug Huffman poo-poos the suggestion that this might have commercial application on submarines. I respectfully disagree. Submarine CO2 removal may be a “mature” technology but that does not mean it can’t be improved. For example, the process Doug describes requires the addition of considerable heat to release the CO2. Fine while your plant is running but not so helpful when you’re in a power emergency. If release by UV is less energy intensive, that theoretically frees up power for other needs.
Similarly, if this new material is more mass-efficient per volume of CO2 adsorbed, it may have the potential to improve the atmosphere controls in space ships and other secured atmosphere environments. That’s not to say that it IS better – the press release is far too scant on details to know, only that it MAY be better and might be interesting to try. Venture capitalists evaluate new technologies like this all the time. We ought not to prejudge.
By the way, I see no comments attributed to the authors of the study suggesting that this technology has anything to do with long-term carbon sequestration or climate change. The closest connection is the choice in the illustration to suggest that a smokestack might be a practical application and who knows what PR person made that decision. I’m afraid I have to agree with Steven Mosher on this one. Some of the negative comments here seem to be based on assumptions about the inventors’ motives rather than on the evidence of their reported statements. (If you are basing your opinion on statements other than the few reported above, please cite rather than allowing the rest of us to assume prejudice.)
A possible useful technology, developed for totally the wrong reason.
Happens sometimes.
In the end, whether or not this scheme could work, may be completely irrelevant. One would have to presume that all the calls to stop Global Warming are initiated honestly and by well-intentioned people. There’s plenty of evidence to dispute that, and if so, then a genuine fix would not be desired. Human beings are social creatures and the structures under which we operate become intwined with the living organisms, ourselves, that created them. Global Warming is just such a structure. The proponents are intwined with it. Therefore it must continue to be insoluble. If AGW were genuinely true, a solution would not be desired.
Mike Rossander, and Steve Mosher, think of this as a smaller than usual type of cylinder to store a gas.
If you wish a gas to spontaneously expel itself from a cylinder when you open the valve, then you will have to do the same amount of work (and more) to put the gas inside the vessel to begin with.
Conversely, if the gas is initially adsorbed spontaneously, then you will have to supply energy to remove it from the container. There is no free lunch energetically, as per the laws of thermodynamics.
I can’t access the full paper, and the abstract contained no chemistry and certain critical numbers are not even mentioned on the website.
A novel, highly expensive CO2-capture material for power stations that costs more than the fuel being burned, is worse than existing technologies, and not needed anyway, hardly makes for a great paper. I maintain my original opinion.
Now the good bit:
My honest guess is that this was a valiant, but failed, attempt to produce a container that could be used for HYDROGEN storage. That would be wonderful. It was a clever approach. Maybe it could yet be made to work. But it’s a lot, lot harder than CO2. It makes me sad that it has to be sold as something so much less than what it could be. That is not setting the right example, in my opinion.
“Mike Rossander says:
February 21, 2013 at 6:18 pm”
I see a lot of poo-pooing coming from Australians and quite rightly so. The CSIRO was called CSIR back in the days when this Govn’t organisation in 1935 fully supported the Queensland Government’s Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations desire to introduce the cane toad “Bufo marinus” to control beetles in cane sugar plantations. This support was self-serving because CSIR was working on the release of the European toad, Bufo vulgaris, to control pests in pastures. A classic example of “unintended consequenses”.
While this technology may have uses, maybe someday, we here in Aus would be better off planting trees and controlling bush fire potential if we’re really serious about controlling CO2 emissions.
MOFs are an area of active research over the last 15 years or more, and they have many important applications in catalysis and capture of particular molecules or reactive intermediates. One example is that MOFs have been designed that can increase the storage of natural gas in vehicle fuel tanks to extend the operating range of trucks and buses by a factor of 3-10. The beauty of MOFs and related metal/organic compounds is that they can be designed to capture specific chemical entities. By simple changes in the chemical environment or by applying the right type of photons (UV range in this case), the physical structure of the “cage” changes, and the captured chemical is released.
The value of this capture/release technology is that it could provide a highly efficient means of capturing CO2 from combustion streams for storage in comparatively small volumes. or releasing it on demand into a biological or chemical process designed to utilize CO2 for beneficial purposes. There is no discussion of economics, but it might be far cheaper to take advantage of such technologies as opposed to economically destructive carbon taxes or crackpot energy generation schemes being proposed as replacements for our current energy sources.
michael hart says:
February 21, 2013 at 8:20 pm
“My honest guess . . . failed . . . used for HYDROGEN storage.”
An interesting idea but it reminded me of the red light and sign used at a darkroom’s door while developing negatives and prints, namely. DO NOT OPEN! There might be a problem with a package containing Hydrogen that self-releases when exposed to light. Ought to add, I suppose, that the sneaky stuff would likely get out on its own.
Time zones make it tough to be ahead of WUWT bloggers with innovative uses for material like this. The new uses that first come to mind have been mentioned. Some more?
1. Sell to dentists who use UV to set polymers for teeth fillings, so that the fillings come with cavities ready made for future income.
2. Sell to owners of UV tanning solariums now closed by law because of cancer risk, so they can keep their lights doing something.
3. Export to countries where CO2 emissions can be converted into carbon credit indulgences.
4. Drop to the ocean depths where there is no UV and no chance to release the CO2 this way, thus avoiding rumoured acidification.
5. Leave out the CO2, hit the structure with music-connected UV light so that it bends. View it on plasma screen while exercising in leotards.
Nah. This is not fun. There are already exciting prospects for MOF inventions, just as shape-memory alloys were the go for a while. Give the guys and gals at CSIRO a break – there are some fine researchers there. Don’t try to confine imaginations, let them blossom. Some wonderful innovations have grown this way.
But please, don’t keep linking everything with bloody global warming. One day someone will calculate how much invention the global warming costs took from other fields and we might live to regret the waste. Whomever wrote the press release, please take note and discuss relevant possibilities.
How often would those sponges have to be replaced because they are full if installed {in, on top, near} the smoke-stack? Every {hour, minute}?
So the Aussies have spent millions on something nature sorted hundreds of millions of years ago. They should learn to catch up.
2×2, I thought I knew where you were going with that!
Well done!
I find all arguments on this post quite spongy in focus. : )
Hey, it’s Friday so lighten up.
John
Mosher – over unity systems are impossible as are unity systems. If you don’t care what it costs you can produce energy from ash. You just can’t produce affordable energy from ash. That is what these people are trying to do. There is a reason we spend trillions developing fracking and deep sea oil recovery technologies while ignoring bottom ash heaps. These schemes to do so exist only because there is government money available. If government money were limited to 70% matching funds these crazy ideas would fade away. The authors know they’re best at generating grant money and least effective at generating profit and energy.
What does the MOF’s absorption of nitrogen have do with how much CO2 that it will absorb?