Computer model pinpoints prime materials for efficient carbon capture

One of the 50 best zeolite structures for capturing carbon dioxide.
 Zeolite is a porous solid made of silicon dioxide, or quartz.
In the model, the red balls are oxygen, the tan balls are silicon.
 The blue-green area is where carbon dioxide prefers to nestle when it adsorbs.
(Berend Smit laboratory, UC Berkeley)

When power plants begin capturing their carbon emissions to reduce greenhouse gases – and to most in the electric power industry, it’s a question of when, not if – it will be an expensive undertaking.

Current technologies would use about one-third of the energy generated by the plants – what’s called “parasitic energy” – and, as a result, substantially drive up the price of electricity.

But a new computer model developed by University of California, Berkeley, chemists shows that less expensive technologies are on the horizon. They will use new solid materials like zeolites and metal oxide frameworks (MOFs) that more efficiently capture carbon dioxide so that it can be sequestered underground.

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The above story is republished from materials provided by UC Berkeley

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