Queen's University boffins have come up with a carbon capture solvent described as an “important step” in solving the climate crisis.
Carbon capture machines “have to be powered somehow” says Professor Stuart James and as a result can have colossal carbon footprints.
Around 16% of US energy is used in chemical separation processes which create equivalent emissions to several million cars.
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But the Queen’s School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering professor says their new porous liquid designed to remove C02 from natural gas can “save up to about 30% of the energy... and should be available in Northern Ireland”.
Northern Ireland was not included the UK Government’s carbon capture plan because we were not considered “geologically optimal for CO2 storage”.
But in order to meet our climate targets the UK Climate Change Committee say we would need to have our first CO2 storage plant in place by 2035 - or halve livestock numbers.
Professors James told us: “We are currently partnering with a company that produces these units to do the gas purification.
“Our goal then is to have a unit operating within one to two years.
“We have been working on it for a little while and it can save energy in a number of processes.
“Biogas, which is produced from farm waste, comes with a mixture of methane mixed up with carbon dioxide.
“You really want to be able to separate those two because then you can pump the methane to people’s homes and they can use it as a renewable fuel.
“If you produce the methane from farm waste then it is not a fossil fuel and is just coming from our waste.”
We pointed out that methane also impacts the climate crisis.
Prof James added: “It is cleaner if you can capture the C02 from it.
“You pump the gas through a cyclic flow system, the gas mixes with the solvent,” he explained.
“Then you can pump that from the gas and it takes away the carbon dioxide with it and just leaves the methane.
“The solvent that contains the carbon dioxide gets pumped to another part where it’s heated and you put it in a vacuum and remove the C02 from it.
“Then you have to think of what to do with that - but there are ideas that you can pump that underground or try to turn it into something useful.
“The solvent, which becomes regenerated, goes back to pick up more C02.
“Compared to one of the standard solvents which is used, we can save up to about 30% of the energy.
“We don’t know exactly what the final solutions to this [climate crisis] are going to look like but it could well be an important step.”
The project is supported by the Centre for Advanced Sustainable Energy, which is funded through Invest NI’s Competence Centre Programme and the research published in Materials Today.
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