HomeEnergy/IndustryImprovements to Membrane Technology Facilitates Better Carbon Capture

Improvements to Membrane Technology Facilitates Better Carbon Capture

A team of scientists have re-engineered membrane technology to make it 150 times more efficient in capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) in gas mixtures leaving coal and natural-gas-fired thermal power plants. Their invention is described in a paper appearing in the journal Science.

The challenge with using membranes to filter CO2 from air streams involves a tradeoff between specific selectivity and flow-through speeds. Older membrane technology suffers from lower levels of selectivity in the interest of allowing more of the gas stream to get through. This results in less CO2 captured as a percentage of total volume.

But a U.S.-Norwegian research team has recently demonstrated a vastly improved membrane that is selective while allowing high flow through. Rich Spontak, Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University (NC State) is one of the authors of the paper that describes their invention. In an NC State press release, Professor Spontak states, “Because we wanted to create a technology that is commercially viable, our technology started with membranes that are already in widespread use. We then engineered the surface of these membranes to improve selectivity. And while this does increase the cost, we think the modified membranes will still be cost-effective.”

What changes did the research team introduce? They created chemically active polymer chains that were both hydrophilic, that is attracted water, and CO2-philic, which attracted the greenhouse gas (GHG). They then applied the polymer to an existing membrane in commercial use. This increased the membrane’s CO2 selectivity 150 times without having a discernible impact on permeability. As a result, more CO2 was captured.

Marius Sandru, one of the co-authors of the published paper and a senior research scientist at SINTEF Industry in Norway, commented on where the technology is headed. He states in the press release that “our next steps are to see the extent to which the techniques we developed here could be applied to other polymers to get comparable, or even superior, results…Honestly, even though the results here have been nothing short of exciting, we haven’t tried to optimize this modification process yet.” 

Professor Spontak sees the applicability of their polymer chain discovery to membranes of all shapes and sizes as having application for use in medicine, and in air filtration systems on submarines and spacecraft to remove CO2. The latter should bring to mind the Apollo 13 crisis when the crew had to improvise a CO2 filter for the Lunar Excursion Module acting as a lifeboat for the damaged spaceship.

It will be interesting to see if this research leads to the invention of new polymer chains to enhance membrane filters that can remove CO2 or other GHGs such as nitrous oxides and methane making their discovery a valuable addition in the fight to mitigate global warming through enhanced carbon capture technologies.

lenrosen4
lenrosen4https://www.21stcentech.com
Len Rosen lives in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. He is a former management consultant who worked with high-tech and telecommunications companies. In retirement, he has returned to a childhood passion to explore advances in science and technology. More...

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